DISCURSIVE FORMATION 2 The concept of discursive formation is frequently revisited. Here I share some reflections based on the different modalities of 'taking up a position' addressed by Pêcheux, specifically counter-identification and disidentification, both important in the functioning of discursive formations. We will start by comparing them.
In disidentification, the subject of discourse no longer identifies himself with knowledges from the discursive formation that used to affect him. In counter-identification, there is a double movement: on one hand, knowledges of the discursive formation are questioned and not fully reduplicated. On the other hand, the subject is exposed to other knowledges that are unconsciously mobilized within his discursive formation.
Thus, between the same and the different, there is an interweaving of discourses that come from another place and discursive formation, which makes the discursive formation heterogeneous. This results in a simultaneously identical and divided formation. Its field of knowledge encompasses, at the same time, identification with the dominant subject-position as well as differences and divergences.
The explanation for both taking up positions are found in what Pêcheux calls disruptions of the ritual. This disruption happens when the subject of discourse meets language and history. Due to this meeting, some disruptions of the ritual may occur.
The first one originates with the entering of formerly extraneous new knowledges into a given domain, which produces transformation/reconfiguration of a discursive formation and its porous boundaries. The second disruption of the ritual may mean not only the transformation/reconfiguration of the discursive formation, but the fragmentation of the very subject-form and the inscription of new subject positions beyond Pêcheux's two taking up position modalities. The second disruption of the ritual leads not only to the fragmentation of.
. . I said second.
. . The third disruption of the ritual leads not only to the fragmentation of the subject-form, but to the establishment of a new subject-position, bringing to the discursive formation knowledges that were not only extraneous at a given moment, but were above all forbidden, causing agitation and strangeness in the discursive formation's stratifications of meanings.
This is what I call an enunciative event, a position that introduces ideological ambiguity and division effects within the discursive formation. And a fourth disruption of the ritual leads the subject to disidentify with one discursive formation to identify himself with another one. The disruption of the ritual refers to a disruption in the interpellation of discourse.
That is, it is because the ritual may be disrupted that the subject can counter-identify himself with the knowledges of his discursive formation, and then begin to question them, fragmenting the subject-form and producing distinct subject positions, even enunciative events. Similarly, it is because the ritual is prone to disruption that the subject may disidentify himself from the discursive formation he was inscribed in to identify himself with another discursive formation, because D. F.
s are not impermeable. Seemingly, the path that leads to disidentification is preceded by counter-identification movements from the bad subject. However, this does not imply that every counter-identification will trigger a disidentification.
The disidentification movement is not clear or dated. It happens through breaches and starts much earlier, with the counter-identification movements. And when this happens, even before migrating to another discursive formation, the subject, unknowingly, had no longer identified himself with the domain in which he was inscribed.
For I believe that disidentification may be to exchange, in quotes, double, triple quotes, from one discursive formation to another. It is a possibility. But I believe there is a distinct type of disidentification: founding a new discursive formation.
This is rare. Very rare. But it is not impossible.
It is not impossible to open up a new domain. Financial support Project management LAS management Image editing Film crew Translation and subtitles: LABESTRAD/UFF G. Muniz/ V.
Hanes/ G. Campos Transl. Revn.
: G. Campos/ B. Caldas Coord.
