---
slug: interpellation
name: Interpellation
one_liner: "The complementary seat of a grand narrative read from the addressee's side: the process by which a structure's address to an individual constitutes that individual AS the subject the structure presupposes — the receiving role is not pre-existing but produced by the very act of being hailed."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [social, framed, epistemic]
origin_domain: critical_theory
alternate_origin_domains: [sociology, media_studies, marketing, law]
aliases: [hailing, subject_constitution, subjectivation, addressee_constitution, hey_you_there]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-07 perspective inversion) — the COMPLEMENTARY SEAT of `grand_narrative_metanarrative`: the grand narrative read from the legitimator/narrator seat (the story that legitimates); interpellation is the SUBJECT/ADDRESSEE seat (the individual hailed by the discourse and constituted as a subject who recognizes themselves in it). op-07 was RETIRED AS SATURATED (relational/perspective core nearly counted — both seats of the canonical pairs already named); interpellation was the SINGLE genuine gap the op-07 pilot surfaced (1 NEW / 53). Discovered/confirmed absent 2026-07-03. STATUS: HOLD pending owner keep/cut."
- "FRAMED / DOMAIN-SPECIFIC flag (per standing convention) — this is Althusserian critical-theory vocabulary, NOT a clean domain-general structural prime: LOWER substrate_independence, HIGHER structural_framed (one of the MORE framed candidates in the pilot). The owner may judge it too domain-bound to be a prime, or prefer the domain-neutral reformulation `addressee_constitution` over the framed name. Flag prominently."
- "Overlap flagged: screen against `performativity` (constituting through speech — interpellation is arguably the addressee-constitution SPECIAL CASE) and `self_fulfilling_prophecy` (being addressed-as-X making one X). Also screen vs `framing`, `theory_of_mind`, and role-type primes."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `performativity` + `grand_narrative_metanarrative` (the input's other seat) + `self_fulfilling_prophecy`; decide keep-as-`interpellation`(framed) / reformulate-as-`addressee_constitution`(domain-neutral) / fold-into-`performativity`; if kept, draw a complementary-seat edge to grand_narrative_metanarrative + a v1 draft + one_liner sync across v1/v2 per CLAUDE.md."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 3
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 3
  transfer_evidence: 3
  reasoning: 'The bare structure — the party ADDRESSED BY a structure is constituted into the role the structure presupposes for them, so that the receiving seat is not a prior given but an effect of the address — has a genuine cross-domain reach: marketing constitutes "the consumer," law "the legal subject," a platform interface "the user," a genre "the reader." That range gives domain_breadth a 4. But the composite scores lower than a clean structural prime (3) because the concept as named travels with a heavy critical-theory apparatus (ideology, hailing, recognition, subject-position): the abstraction is real but its canonical statement is framed, and the domain-neutral "addressee-constitution" form is a reformulation the proposer supplies rather than the received concept. Structural_abstraction is 3 — the core (addressee constituted-as-subject by the address) is substrate-neutral in principle, but the load-bearing recognition/turning step and the ideology substrate keep it from cleanly detaching. Transfer evidence is moderate: the generalizations (consumer/user/reader/legal-subject) are plausible and widely observed but are proposer-asserted rather than a construct independently named as "interpellation" across those literatures.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: grand_narrative_metanarrative
  similarity: 0.58
structural_framed:
  label: framed
  aggregate: 0.62
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.75, evaluative_weight: 0.55, institutional_origin: 0.7, human_practice_bound: 0.6, import_vs_recognize: 0.65}
  rationale: 'Reads framed — one of the more framed candidates in the pilot. The concept is imported from Althusserian critical theory rather than recognized as a substrate-neutral pattern: its canonical vocabulary (ideology, hailing, recognition, the subject) travels with it (vocab_travels high), it is institutionally/theoretically originated in a specific school (institutional_origin high), and it is bound to human social practice — discourse, address, recognition — rather than holding across arbitrary substrates (human_practice_bound moderate-high). There is a real substrate-neutral core underneath — the addressee constituted-as-subject by the structure''s address — which is why the aggregate is not higher; but recovering that core requires the proposer''s domain-neutral reformulation (`addressee_constitution`), an import-not-recognize move (import_vs_recognize high). The owner should weigh whether to keep the framed name or promote the reformulation.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Interpellation

## Core Idea

Interpellation names the process by which a structure's *address* to an individual constitutes that individual AS the kind of subject the structure presupposes — the receiving role is not pre-existing and then addressed, but *produced by the very act of being addressed*. In Althusser's image (1970), ideology "hails" the individual — "Hey, you there!" — and in the individual's turning-around-in-recognition, the individual is constituted as a subject of that ideology. The distinctive anatomy has three parts: (1) an *address / hail* issued by a structure (ideology, institution, discourse, brand, law); (2) a *recognition / turning* by the addressee, who takes the address to be for them; (3) the *constitution* of the addressee as a subject-position defined by that structure. The subject is an *effect* of being addressed, not a given prior to it — the person who recognizes themselves as the discourse's target thereby becomes the subject the discourse assumed.

Read as the complementary seat of an existing prime, interpellation is the addressee-side inversion of `grand_narrative_metanarrative`. A grand narrative is read from the *legitimator / narrator* seat: the overarching story that legitimates a practice, an order, a knowledge-claim. Interpellation is the same relation read from the *subject / addressee* seat: not the story that legitimates, but the individual whom the story hails and constitutes. The two are the two ends of one relation — a discourse that legitimates from above is a discourse that hails and constitutes from below. The corpus already carries the legitimator seat; the subject-constituted-by-address seat is what interpellation supplies. This is precisely the kind of gap operator 07 (perspective inversion) is built to surface: the same structure looked at from the opposite pole.

The general, substrate-lighter shape worth naming — whether under the framed label or a domain-neutral reformulation — is: *the party addressed by a structure is constituted into the role the structure presupposes for them*. Marketing constitutes "the consumer" by addressing them as one; law constitutes "the legal subject" it presupposes; a platform's interface constitutes "the user"; a genre constitutes "the reader" it is written for. In each, the receiving seat (consumer, subject, user, reader) is not a pre-existing population that the structure then speaks to, but a role produced by the structure's address — the address calls its own addressee into being. That recurrence beyond ideology is the case for treating interpellation (or its domain-neutral form) as more than a single-domain concept.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by operator 07 (perspective inversion) as the complementary-seat inversion of `grand_narrative_metanarrative`: the grand narrative read from the legitimator/narrator seat vs. interpellation read from the subject/addressee seat. Operator 07 as a whole was **retired as saturated** — the relational/perspective core of the corpus is nearly fully counted, with both seats of the canonical pairs already named (signaling + screening, principal + agent, and so on). Interpellation was the *single* genuine gap the op-07 pilot surfaced (1 NEW / 53 applications), confirmed absent from the corpus on 2026-07-03. Established concept: Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (1970); the "hailing"/"Hey, you there!" scene; related to Foucault's *subjectivation* and the addressee/subject-position in media and reader-response theory. Manifest: lone find, low priority (op-07 saturated).

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut) — be candid.** The case FOR: interpellation is a genuine *complementary seat the corpus lacks* — `grand_narrative_metanarrative` is present but only from the legitimator side, and the subject-constituted-by-address side is unnamed — and it carries a real cross-domain generalization (consumer / user / reader / legal-subject constitution). The case AGAINST is substantial and should be weighed frankly: (1) **heavily FRAMED** — this is Althusserian critical theory, and the concept as named travels with its theoretical apparatus (ideology, hailing, recognition, the subject); the owner may judge it too domain-bound to sit as a prime, or prefer the domain-neutral reformulation over the framed name. (2) **Overlap with `performativity`** — interpellation is plausibly the *addressee-constitution special case* of constitution-through-speech; if performativity already covers "constituting through the utterance," interpellation may be a child rather than a peer. (3) **Overlap with `self_fulfilling_prophecy`** — being addressed-as-X and thereby becoming X is adjacent to the self-fulfilling mechanism. (4) op-07 is saturated overall, so this is the lone find and low-priority. **Sharp keep/cut question:** keep as `interpellation` (framed name), reformulate as domain-neutral `addressee_constitution`, or fold into `performativity`? Recommend evaluating it *alongside* `performativity` and `grand_narrative_metanarrative` rather than in isolation — the decision turns on whether the addressee-constitution structure is distinct enough from performativity and worth carrying under a framed name.

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against `grand_narrative_metanarrative` (the input's other seat — the complementary-seat relationship is the primary structural claim), `performativity` (constitution-through-speech — the strongest merge/parent candidate), `self_fulfilling_prophecy` (adjacent mechanism), `framing`, `theory_of_mind`, and role-type primes to confirm no collapse. If kept: decide the name (`interpellation` framed vs. `addressee_constitution` domain-neutral) and draw a *complementary-seat* edge to `grand_narrative_metanarrative` plus, if it survives the performativity screen, a subsumption edge `performativity` → `interpellation` (addressee-constitution as a special case of constitution-through-speech). Add a missing-edge note flagging the `performativity` and `self_fulfilling_prophecy` relationships explicitly. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
