This article revisits Kristin Ross’ monograph, May ’68 and its Afterlives and investigates the ways in which she utilizes the Rancièrean concept of disidentification in order to understand the process of students’ political subjectivation during May ’68 in France. It argues that she interrogates students’ practices of disidentification in terms of their political opening to the figure of the Worker and that she puts forth two forms in which this relation unfolds, one “impossible identification” which rises upon paradoxically identifying with a name (“Worker”) that is not assigned to the person and the other solidarity with the workers. It claims that Rancière’s two different interpretations of emancipatory political heterology can actually help us grasp the core features of these two forms respectively. While one of Ranciere’s interpretations reads political heterology as the staging of the Self as Other without being bound by any social determinations, his other interpretation instead reads it as a socially-grounded process of self-othering, i.e. a process that takes place through political transformation of one’s assigned social identity from within. These two distinct understandings are crucial for unearthing Ross’ particular comprehension of the two forms of students’ disidentification as subjectivation. Finally, this article revisits Ross’ account on student’s solidarity with workers and asks whether it opens new pathways to reimagine students’ practices of disidentification as grounded in their critique of the university apparatus as a site of bureaucratic-capitalist power.

Rancière, Kristin Ross, May ’68, Student Movement, Worker, Disidentification, Subjectivation.