Identification and Political Listening Theory

This essay is one part of a forum issue entitled “Reconsidering the Definition of Listening.” It intends to address a notable shortage of theoretical reflection linking Political Listening to the communicational processes that shape the democratic experience stemming from citizenship, giving rise to public mobilizations and protests – phenomena more commonly addressed in terms of the public voice and democratic performativity than as the result of grassroots practices of Political Listening. It poses the question: How is the Political Listener constituted? Its core hypothesis is based on the possibility that, starting from situated contexts of any kind, Political Listening may emerge not only from physical, contextual, conversational, or interactional situations, but may also be triggered by individual and often indeterminate factors, not necessarily situated within the original context, rather based on processes of subjectivation – that is, Political Listening may emerge from moments of subjective transformation within the listening instance. Such factors are explored under the conceptual umbrella of identification.