Citation

Narayan Y. Soc. Ident. 2005; 11(4): 395-412.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13504630500356413

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Analysing ethnographic interview material on ‘domestic violence’, the article advances a non-sovereign notion of an unbounded subject who is essentially dependent on others in their (re)formation. I discuss how the subject's experiential sense of a singular, bounded, continuous and autonomous self comes into being in relation to who can ‘possibly’ be desired and loved. I further consider how the practising selves of the ‘I’ come into being in relation to others, through the simultaneous interiorisation or incorporation of others and the exteriorisation of what is unrecognizable and unassimilable into other bodies. In continuous dialogue with the words of a single respondent, I consider how the threat posed by acts of ‘disobedience’ to internal interdictions against who can be desired and loved is the threat of dissolution to the effect of a constant, intelligible and self-governing subject. I discuss how ‘others’ are ‘desired’ and ‘chosen’ by subjects who will keep the practising self in relation to others alive. The article discusses how the desired other is invited to question or affirm the distribution or ascription of different capacities, aptitudes and states of being to particular bodies including the body of the self.