interpellation

"I shall then suggest that ideology 'acts' or 'functions' in such a way that it 'recruits' subjects among the individuals (it recruits them all), or 'transforms' the individuals into subjects (it transforms them all) by that very precise operation which I have called interpellation or hailing, and which can be imagined along the lines of the most commonplace everyday police (or other) hailing: 'Hey, you there!'" (Louis Althusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses)

due to our unique relationship with many of the more abstruse theorists of our time, academics in the humanities have very creative and colourful ways of expressing dismay and discontent. one friend, when she feels folks have crossed over those personal boundaries one is always trying to protect in order to preserve a sense of self, demands that no one "breech her hermeneutic circle". "don't do it", she'll warn. "don't breech the hermeneutic circle!" another friend, when confronted with the prosaic foibles and follies of her students, speaks of being "pedagogically disturbed". lately, as the term winds down and i feel stretched in a million directions at once, the only way i can express my experience of these many demands is to claim that i'm "overinterpellated".

as i've clumsily made my way through the world, front line reps for those institutions that keep our current ideological climate buzzing have been hailing me up the wazoo. if it isn't my beloved grad chair, silently signaling with a sharp wave of her spread index and middle fingers that "she's watching me", it's the policeman who stopped me in the drive thru of tim horton's, following my accidental running of a red light the other morning. as he approached my car, with its window rolled down in preparation for ordering my morning 'coaching coffee' on the way to the boathouse, he wielded his police-ly authority by referring to his attire:

"excuse me, but as you can see by my pants, i'm a police officer, and i saw you run that red light back there. i'm off-duty, but i think you need to know that i think what you did was ignorant. you are arrogant and disrespectful for thinking you can drive like that, and you should be careful, because you'll never know who is watching in the lane beside you."

i was both too stunned and too scared to say much. for the rest of the day, i tried, unsuccessfully, to shake off my ignorant, arrogant and disrespectful subjectivity.

this morning, while out on the water, timing boats for the wednesday morning time trials down at the rowing club, it happened again.

as shani and i sat in the coach boat, waiting for the singles, 4+s and 8+s to come down the course and cross over the 4.5 km mark, we had tied the boat to the dock of the ministry of defense building next to the causeway bridge. shortly after our docking, a man in a smart green uniform approached us and told us, in no uncertain terms, that we were not allowed to dock on ministry property, implying by his arched eyebrow that our fishing boat, with its 9.9 hp motor, presented some sort of security threat. both shani and i had to keep from laughing. dressed as we were in giant orange floater suits that made us each look like the michelin man hepped up on too much vitamin a, the only threat we presented was an aesthetic one. we were hardly outfitted for espionage, what with our stop watch, fox 40 whistle, clipboard and crayons -- yes, crayons. as we motored back to the boathouse we shook our heads, and though i found it easy to locate the humour in the situation, i must admit to shrinking a little inside my giant orange cocoon.

i'm not sure how much more of this hailing i can take. i'm fighting the urge to don a baseball cap and dark glasses. i find myself rounding corners with caution and peering under cushions with suspicion, tensing at the thought of the long arm of authority fingering me yet again. if you pass me on the street, whatever you do, don't call out "hey you, there!". i'll probably duck and run.