Social formation elements articulate with each other in complex ways

Evidence

Further, in an early usage of what was to become for him an absolutely critical term, he notes that Marx’s “1857 Introduction” to the Grundrisse contains the basis for what he describes as a theory of articulations between the different elements or levels of a social formation (to use the Althusserian terminology). These different elements are, he suggests, best seen as articulated with each other in complex ways, and critical forms of social change can best be explained by means of the model of overdetermination, which Althusser borrows from Freud. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 293

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Defines the pivotal Hall concept of ‘articulation’ between social levels, traced to Marx’s Grundrisse and Althusser’s Freudian overdetermination.
• XREF: Articulation is the term Hall later built his entire cultural studies methodology around, and it connects to psychoanalytic overdetermination.

Related

• Articulation is a non-necessary linkage connecting ideology to social forces under specific conditions (similarity 0.90)
• A social formation is a structured complex where no single practice reduces to another. (similarity 0.84)
• Social formations are complex unities structured in dominance, not determined by a single cause (similarity 0.84)
• Articulation lets distinct practices with different contradictions be thought together. (similarity 0.84)
• Society operates as a complex formation structured in dominance with relative institutional autonomy (similarity 0.83)
• Marx’s 1857 Introduction supports viewing social formation as an articulated hierarchy. (similarity 0.82)
• Meaning and social relations form not sequentially but through structural articulation within a whole (similarity 0.81)
• Articulation links different social structures through their differences, not their identities. (similarity 0.80)
• Articulation rejects reducing one societal level to expression of another. (similarity 0.80)
• No single practice (like economics) determines all others; overdetermination does. (similarity 0.79)
• Marxism reads social formations as overdetermined unities with relatively autonomous levels (similarity 0.79)
• Althusser rejected the Hegelian ‘expressive totality’ conception of society (similarity 0.79)
• Capitalist and formally pre-capitalist modes combine in structured dominance. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Social formations form complex unities structured in dominance rather than expressive identities. #expands (0.85) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 616
• Marxism reads social formations as overdetermined unities with relatively autonomous levels #expands (0.80) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 336
• Full autonomy of social levels cannot capture a social formation’s complex unity #expands (0.70) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 623
• Material and social reproduction occur simultaneously and inseparably #exemplifies (0.55) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 496