Subjectivity

Subjectivity is a condition of being a presupposed person: an existing being whose perspectives, experiences, feelings, desires, behavior, and agency are targeted for observation, predictability, and control purposes. Often invoked as a contrast to objectivity, which is a view of reality free from individual influence, subjectivity reflects a collection of perceptions, expectations, cultural partialities, and beliefs shared by a person or social group. Subjectivity’s primary characteristic—particularly in relation to questions of surveillance, security, and privacy in the Digital Age—is liquidity. Because of the ways in which human perceptions, sensations, emotions, and thoughts undergo daily fluid change, temporal and spatial variables play integral roles in framing subjectivity itself. Accordingly, the subject is constructed and controlled through the process of subjectification: the molding of subjectivity via the ...