Campbell, Kirsten. Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 2004. p 118.<\/p>\n
Nancy Fraser claims that in the Lacanian model of discourse, \u2018one cannot even pose the question of cultural hegemony\u2019 (1992: 184). However, by using the concept of the social fiction<\/span> it is possible not only to pose the question of cultural hegemony using Lacan\u2019s model of discourse, but also to see the productivity of its answer.<\/p>\n Social fictions<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Social fiction\u2019 emphasizes the formation of subjectivity and intersubjectivity in social discourses. This concept stresses the social and ultimately fictive nature of social discourses, which are fictional in the sense that they are contingent upon a symbolic field that gives them meaning. The concept focuses upon the discursive production of forms of subjectivity<\/strong> and the relations between subjects, developing the Lacanian theory of discourse as a description of the structure and operation of social discourses.<\/p>\n This concept of \u2018social fictions<\/span>\u2019 describes the dominant social discourses that constitute a subject<\/strong>, such that the term names the multiplicity of socially produced and sanctioned ideas about how one \u2018is\u2019 a subject. A social fiction<\/span> is a socio-symbolic representation of subjective identity. Social fictions<\/span> work to produce a subject as subject, with a gendered and racialized identity. With that identity, a subject (mis)recognizes itself in particular dominant signifiers of social discourses. Dominant social fictions<\/span> include discourses of ethnicity, sexuality, class and gender. As discursive formations, social fictions<\/span> produce\u00a0 the speaking position of subjects. <\/strong>They represent an enunciative position, for example, \u2018I am Scottish\u2019, or \u2018I am a woman\u2019, and so on. This I<\/span> of the speaking subject is an imaginary position of consciousness or \u2018self\u2019. These social fictions<\/span> produce a subject\u2019s relation to itself and its others, and so enable the subject to think of itself as a self and as distinct from, or the same as, its others. As an I<\/span>, the subject experiences itself as a unified self that possesses identity. However, the production of the identity of the subject in social fictions<\/span> generates not only its relation to itself, but also its relations to other subjects. For example, in the Lacanian schema, the Discourse of the Master describes a relation of mastery of \u2018self\u2019 and others. In this way, social fictions<\/span> can be understood as a symbolic relation of subject to other subjects. Social fictions<\/span> represent the discursive relation of the subject to itself and to other subjects, because their discourses are socio-symbolic representations of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. I understand social fictions as discourses, which a dominant signifier structures and gives its distinctive shape. Social fictions<\/span> operate as a sequence of master signifiers<\/span> that, as Mark Bracher describes, have other signifiers attaching to them in metonymic and metaphorical movement of signification (1993: 49). Every social fiction<\/span> has a discursive structure, and a dominant master signifier<\/span> that produces the subject. The master signifier<\/span> functions as the interpellative \u2018hook\u2019 of subjective identity, since it represents that moment at which the subject (mis)recognizes itself in social fictions. The master signifier<\/span> enables the subject to perceive itself reflected (or otherwise) in social discourse. This identificatory and phantasmic \u2018interpellation\u2019 gives social fictions their power \u2013 for subjects literally recognize themselves or, in Althusserian terms, are \u2018hailed\u2019 by social discourses of identity. The master signifier<\/span> serves as a mechanism of identification with social fictions, and so as a mechanism of psychic and social identification. Master signifiers<\/span> enable the subject to represent its self to itself and also to other subjects. As social subjects, we recognize the master signifiers<\/span> of other subjects, whether similar or different to our own, because the master signifier<\/span> represents the subject for another subject. In this way, master signifiers<\/span> serve to anchor social fictions as discourses, both in the production of the subject and in the production of its relation to other subjects.<\/p>\n In this way, this notion of the \u2018social fiction\u2019 reworks the Lacanian conception of discourse as a social bond in terms of socio-symbolic relations between subjects. As discourses, social fictions produce meaning, as well as relations between subjects<\/strong>. 118 <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Campbell, Kirsten. Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 2004. p 118. Nancy Fraser claims that in the Lacanian model of discourse, \u2018one cannot even pose the question of cultural hegemony\u2019 (1992: 184). However, by using the concept of the social fiction it is possible not only to pose the question of cultural … Continue reading “social fictions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,24,40,114,15,118,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-discourses","category-lacan","category-lack","category-sexuation","category-subjectivity","category-symbolic","category-the-real"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6910"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6917,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910\/revisions\/6917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIn the Lacanian model, master signifiers<\/span> \u2018dominate\u2019 discourses, holding a discourse together and giving it a distinctive shape by ordering its structure of signifiers. The subject takes up a speaking position according to the master signifier of its discourse (in the Lacanian model, that of Master, Hysteric, Analyst and Academic)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n