Against the Self-Evidence of the Individual

Trajectories, Relational Obligations, and Institutional Mediations in Latin America

Abstract

This article examines a recurring problem in contemporary social theory: the use of the individual as a self-sufficient empirical name for the actor. It argues that this operation tends to overlap three levels that should be distinguished: the individual as a historical-normative figure of autonomy, individualization as a historical-institutional grammar of responsibilization, and individuation as the social process through which singular trajectories are constituted. On the basis of this clarification, the argument shifts attention from presumed properties of the actor to the temporal, relational, institutional, and distributive conditions under which a trajectory can be sustained. Latin America serves as a heterogeneous critical configuration for examining this shift: inequality, segmented social protection, and unequal institutional access modify the concrete possibilities of responding to demands for autonomy. A trajectory documented in Chile offers a bounded illustration of the gap between capacities and initiative, on the one hand, and institutional possibilities of realization, on the other. The article contributes a conceptual clarification and analytical reorganization: individual, individualization, and individuation should not operate as equivalent registers when describing the empirical actor.