The power of the 'imaginary' in disciplinary processes

The focus of this article is on processes of social control and the role that images and processes of identification play in effecting such control. The article begins by schematically tracing the history of the new paradigm of control firstly within the managerial literature as a move 'from control to commitment', then through critical accounts of,employee subjection', through to more recent discussions of the nature of resistance. This history and its various puzzling inversions are then reviewed through Lacan's account of the 'imaginary', and Butler's associated re-reading of oedipal identifications. These offer an account both of the constitution of a humanist, interiorized sense of self-of the self as a discrete, autonomous, independent entity-as well as of the illusions or misunderstandings of this humanist conception of the self. It is suggested that the Power of the imaginary lies in the power of recognition and the way in which this acts as a lure or trap in which we seek and find ourselves. It is this desire for existence confirming recognition that founds our interest in the control of others and leaves us vulnerable to control by others. Understanding the misrecognition involved in such processes of identification allows clearer sight of the conditions for effective resistance.