...acquisition of the status of the subject in and through compliance with the terms of the interrogative law. To become a "subject" is thus to have been presumed...act but a status incessantly reproduced, to become a "subject" is to be continuously in the process of acquitting oneself of the accusation of guilt. It...

...submission to the law is a necessity to prove one's innocence in the face of accusation. Butler points out: "To become a 'subject' is thus to have been presumed guilty, then tried and declared innocent." See her Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,...