When the Call Is Not Meant for You: Misinterpellation, Subjectivity, and the Law

In this article, I argue that Althusser’s theory of interpellation suggests, however obliquely, a way to subvert and ruin the formation of subjectivity under liberal capitalism. For Althusser, when the law calls the subject, “nine times out of ten” the person called is “really” the one that the law intended. This article asks about the one in ten who is not the one whom the law wanted but who answers the call anyway. This is what I am calling the misinterpellated subject. I argue that this subject, because she or he is unwanted and unexpected, rhetorically ruins the scene of interpellation, offering a potentially radical source of resistance to liberal capitalism. Looking at Althusser’s work on interpellation along with critics like Judith Butler and Lauren Berlant, I seek to show how the occasional flaws in interpellation (the one in ten) can be expanded by developing an anarchist politics as well as anarchist forms of subjectivity.