Class(ed) unconsciousness: The stickiness of class

This article argues that class is not simply an economic or occupational category but a deeply embodied, affective and sticky identity, which is performatively produced and reproduced through repetition, imitation and everyday modes of being. The article theorizes the performative formation of sticky classed identities, with a particular focus on the classing of the unconscious. The first section proposes a new understanding of the ideological formation of the neuroscientific unconscious (rather than the repressive psychoanalytic unconscious in Althusser’s model of interpellation). The following section examines the specific ways in which the unconscious is ‘classed’ (in terms of the role of different capitals, the formation of groups, the force of stereotypes and cultural representations, performances of self and the production of tastes and desires). The final section critiques dominant policy frameworks in the arts and cultural and creative industries – particularly those centred on meritocracy and social mobility – for failing to address the embedded and unconscious ways in which class is produced and maintained. The article argues that even though it may be obscured, class remains an enduring and influential aspect of personal identity, with significant impacts in terms of individuals’ lives, self-perception and social interactions and arrangements.