Subjectivation

Subjectivation refers to the process by which individuals are constituted as subjects through social practices, discourses, and power relations. It treats subjectivity not as a fixed essence but as an ongoing becoming shaped by norms, institutions, and forms of knowledge.

In poststructuralist thought, particularly in the work of Michel Foucault, subjectivation is tied to power/knowledge and the governance of conduct. Individuals are produced as knowable and responsible subjects through discourses, norms, and technologies of governance; intersubjective relations and biopolitical regulation contribute to self-perception.

Mechanisms include normalization, discipline, surveillance, and technologies of the self, where individuals internalize rules and govern themselves. Subjectivation thus entails both constraints and possibilities for agency, enabling some forms of self-creation while limiting others.

Subjectivation operates at macro and micro levels. Examples include education systems that shape identities, gender and racial norms that produce patterned subjects, and digital platforms that generate data-driven subjectivities. Critics also emphasize resistance, subversion, and the ongoing renegotiation of norms.

Related concepts include subject formation, subjectivity, governmentality, and biopower. The term is used across philosophy, critical theory, feminism, and postcolonial studies to analyze how power and knowledge produce the selves who act within a social world.