A term used by Julia Kristeva to mean something that confuses violates or undermines some established order or stable position.
It has this effect because it is in the middle of what we normally consider to be absolute oppositions (eg life/death, human/machine).
Many English words are derived from the Latin jacere “throw”. Most of these words are important for semiotics (subject, object, and abject).
Etymologically subject (sub = below) is that which is thrown from below, or submits to some process; The object (ob = against) is that which is itself against or opposed to something else; and abject is that which is rejected, far from something.
The Abject is neither a subject nor an object; rather, it is something that “violates identities, systems, order. Something that does not respect restrictions, positions, rules. Something between, twofold, confused” (Kristeva 1980, 12).
A body is an example of an abject because it is neither human nor inhuman – it is something mean and confused. The mother’s body for the child is an abject – something that both belongs and does not belong to the child.
The abject according to Kristeva is a key factor in the formation of subjectivity or the Self. In the early stage of identity formation (a process involving a transition from the pre-Oedipal semiotic to the symbolic level) the abject contributes to the separation of the child from the mother. But identity formation is a long process in which the semiotic dimension of subjectivity and language often disrupts the symbolic order.
Thus, throughout our lives, the abject seeks to destroy identity, system, and order. Since our identity and balance as subjects are derived from the density and stability of the objects to which we ourselves are attached, in essence, the abject threatens our subjectivity.
The formation of subjectivity is a complex, long and uncertain process in which we witness, on the one hand, the divergence of boundaries between the Self and the others, and on the other, the ability of the Self to distinguish itself from others.
Jacques Lacan and Luce Irigaray, Kristeva, and other semioticians have studied this process in-depth and in detail; one of the defining features of Kristeva’s seme analytic theory of human subjectivity takes into account the role played by the abject.
