Foucault News

Testini, F.
Genealogical Solutions to the Problem of Critical Distance: Political Theory, Contextualism and the case of Punishment in Transitional Scenarios
(2021) Res Publica

DOI: 10.1007/s11158-021-09515-2

Abstract
In this paper, I argue that one approach to normative political theory, namely contextualism, can benefit from a specific kind of historical inquiry, namely genealogy, because the latter provides a solution to a deep-seated problem for the former. This problem consists in a lack of critical distance and originates from the justificatory role that contextualist approaches attribute to contextual facts. I compare two approaches to genealogical reconstruction, namely the historiographical method pioneered by Foucault and the hybrid method of pragmatic genealogy as practiced by Bernard Williams, arguing that they both ensure an increase in critical distance while preserving contextualism’s distinctiveness. I also show, however, that only the latter provides normative action-guidance and can thus assist the contextualist theorist in the crucial task of discerning how far certain contextual facts deserve their justificatory role. I prove this point by showing how a pragmatic genealogy of the practice of punishment can inform the contextualist’s reflection about the role this practice should play in a transitional scenario, i.e. in the set of circumstances societies go through in the aftermath of large-scale violence and human rights violations. © 2021, The Author(s).

Author Keywords
Contextualism; Genealogy; Methodology; Political theory; Punishment; Transitional justice

Beugnet, M., Delanoë-Brun, E.
Raw becomings: Bodies, discipline and control in Julia Ducornau’s Grave
(2021) French Screen Studies, 21 (3), pp. 204-223.

DOI: 10.1080/26438941.2021.1920705

Abstract
Julia Ducournau’s Grave (2018) takes place within the confines of an isolated veterinary school, where humans and animals coexist as part of a highly codified environment. Against the backdrop of the school’s methodical and ritualised social regulation, disruptive bodily transformations take place, blurring the biological and behavioural categories that traditionally define species-based identities. Grave presents us with two irreconcilable yet complementary concepts of the body: one that is subject to the scientific pursuit of categorising, normalising and disciplining already in evidence in the proto-cinematic project of decomposing movement, and another corporeality based on fluidity and exchange, recalling Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of becoming. Following the stylistic conventions of a French horror cinema that foregrounds the materiality of the image, bodies, in Grave, appear as markers of subjection, adaptation or resistance to strategies of disciplining and normalisation. However, the film’s visual and narrative lines of flight, and its open-ended conclusion, raise the question of a move from one disciplining system to another, more diffuse model of control. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Author Keywords
becoming; Body horror; Deleuze and Guattari; Foucault; French horror; Muybridge

Häberlen, J.C.
Heterochronias: reflections on the temporal exceptionality of revolts
(2021) European Review of History, 28 (4), pp. 531-548.

DOI: 10.1080/13507486.2021.1897530

Abstract
Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of Heterotopias, the article explores how we can understand revolts and revolutions as ‘heterochronian’ moments. Revolts turn spaces of ordinary everyday life, streets and squares, factories and universities, into ‘absolutely different’ spaces, at least for a moment. But these are also times that radically differ from normal times. Revolts, the article suggests, fall outside the normalcy of time. As an empirical example, this article explores the urban revolts of 1980–81 in cities such as Zurich, Amsterdam, and, most famously, West Berlin, discussing how activists themselves interpreted their revolts as temporary disruptions for which the moment mattered, no matter the long-term outcomes.

Author Keywords
radical left; squatting; temporality; urban revolts; West Berlin

Brady, D.
The circulatory panopticon: Real names, rail infrastructure and Foucault’s realist turn
(2021) Political Geography, 90, art. no. 102463

DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102463

Abstract
This article examines the contemporary Chinese rail system as a circulatory panopticon: an apparatus that uses the “natural” movements of the population to render them legible and safe. The panoptic effect of rail space has emerged only recently. The Chinese state’s introduction of the “real-name system” has made a state-legible identity an inextricable part of everyday life, and recent transformations in ticketing and station entry have placed it at the center of mobility practices as well. Synthesizing Foucault’s apparatus of security with Karen Barad’s realist conception of the apparatus, this article examines how the more-than-human elements of the rail system realize a panoptic assemblage out of the movements of passengers. Based on participant observation and interview data, this article examines three key elements of the rail system: the national identity card, the ticket, and the station entrance. Drawing on Barad’s account of diffraction, I analyze how the particular material characteristics of these things both function to realize the circulatory panopticon and also to introduce novel discontinuities and fractures. This paper makes two contributions. First, it argues for a greater attention to the question of reality in Foucault’s thinking: just as the art of government increasingly recognizes and calibrates itself against ‘reality,’ Foucault’s analysis of governmentality becomes increasingly realist. Second, it shows how infrastructure is simultaneously a font of state power and a source of problems for the state—a contradiction deeply relevant in China today. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd

Author Keywords
China; Citizenship; Infrastructure; Mobility; Panopticon