This is a 'think' piece, a conceptual paper, in which I ask questions about the construct of 'voice' and the assumptions of 'self' within it, and about the conditions of its production and reception. I suggest that some new ways of thinking about 'voice' as dialogic and discursive can be useful.

The construct of voice has had a varied and sometimes high profile career in a wide range of fields, and has become loaded with highly charged and often unexamined assumptions. 'Voice' is the hero in stories that champion research subjects to speak for themselves, empower students to find their voices, and encourage the expression of one's 'authentic voice' in writing. Often conflated with the personal or with the self, 'voice' seems to stand in for an authenticity of experience; in this view, finding and expressing one's 'own voice' become important tasks.(1) Issues of power, agency, and views of 'self' assumed in uses of 'voice' have been analyzed by feminist and poststructural theorists (Britzman, 1989; Grumet, 1990; Ellsworth, 1992; Orner,1992; Finke, 1993; Otte, 1995; Kramer-Dahl, 1996; Lensmire, 1998), some of whom suggest alternative ways to think about 'voice' and the constellation of issues that circulate around it.

The use of 'voice' as self-expression assumes a stable, already existing, coherent 'self' that can be expressed through language, rather than a contingent subjectivity constituted in language. How might we conceptualize 'voice' in a way that takes into consideration poststructural understandings of language and subjectivity? What relations of power/knowledge are reiterated in calls for 'voice'?

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