Interpellation

Interpellation is Louis Althusser's term for the process by which ideology transforms individuals into subjects — not by persuasion but by recognition. When an authority calls out and the called turns, that turning-around is the moment of subject-formation: the individual has already recognized themselves as the kind of being who is called, who is accountable, who exists within the ideological frame.

The concept is often misunderstood as a theory of brainwashing. It is better understood as a theory of structural subjectivity: the "you" that responds to the call was not there before the call; it was produced by the call. This makes interpellation a mechanism of emergence at the social level: the subject is an emergent property of the ideological system, not a pre-given entity that the system subsequently influences. The hermeneutic resources through which the subject understands their own experience are themselves outputs of the interpolating structure.

See also Ideology, Ideological State Apparatuses, Subject Formation.