Subjectivation

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Subjectivation is a philosophical concept coined by Michel Foucault. It refers to the construction of the individual subject. The concept has been often used in critical theory, sometimes with Louis Althusser's concept of interpellation (Gilles Deleuze, for example, used it in quite the same negative sense as Althusser's interpellation). As in Gilbert Simondon's theory of individuation, subjectivation precedes the subject in the same way as the process of individuation precedes the creation of the individual. While the classical notion of a subject considers it as a term, Foucault considered the process of subjectivation to have an ontological preeminence on the subject as a term.