Foucault News

Jindra, M., Paulle, B., Jindra, I.W.
Relational Work in the Struggle Against Poverty: Balancing Scholarly Critiques and Emancipatory Practices in the Nonprofit Sector
(2020) Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 49 (1), pp. 160-179.

DOI: 10.1177/0899764019861716

Abstract
Among antipoverty nonprofit organizations (NPOs), a significant shift back to “relational work” has been occurring. This form of human services connotes strong bonds and durable engagement with clients on major life changes. Critics have associated such efforts with paternalistic and disciplinary regimes reinforcing broader neoliberal trends. Perhaps now, with mounting pressures toward (narrow) professionalization among nonprofits, these illuminating critiques can usefully be paired with investigations doing justice to relational work’s beneficial inner workings and effects. Informed by years of immersion in NPOs and insights from “late” Foucault—ironically the central theoretical influence among critics of relational work—we show how and why researchers might approach even problematic aspects of this form of social action as unavoidable elements capable of contributing to the alleviation of poverty. The conclusion argues for pragmatic and multifaceted approaches to the study and management of antipoverty nonprofits balancing both the precariousness and promise of relational work. © The Author(s) 2019.

Author Keywords
antipoverty; Foucault; human service work; nonprofits; relational work

Mayes, C.
Governmentality of Fencing in Australia: Tracing the White Wires from Paddocks to Aboriginal Protection, Pest Exclusion and Immigration Restriction
(2020) Journal of Intercultural Studies, 41 (1), pp. 42-59.

DOI: 10.1080/07256868.2020.1704228

Abstract
The importation of wire-fencing to Australia from the 1840s transformed the management of sheep. Rather than shepherds watching over flocks, wire-fences allowed sheep to roam relatively unsupervised in paddocks. It is commonly argued that the popularity of wire-fenced paddocks arose because they reduced labor costs and improved wool production. This is partly true. The declining use of shepherds to protect flocks coincided with the ending of brutal frontier wars and localised eradication of dingoes. That is, the conditions for adopting wire fences and practice of paddocking were made possible through violence. Fences came to denote property, order, and civilization. Drawing on and expanding Michel Foucault’s work on pastoral power and governmentality, this paper argues that the initial period of colonial “pastoral violence” dovetailed into a “fencing governmentality” that mobilised literal and figurative “paddocks” to manage, sort, and reproduce life that is desirable while excluding life that is not. Importantly, violence does not vacate the paddock, but is recoded and manifest differently depending on one’s relation to the fences. This paper traces the development of a fencing governmentality and its use in the protection, exclusion and restriction of biological life, namely the lives of Aboriginals, animals, and non-British immigrants. © 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Author Keywords
Australia; colonial violence; Governmentality; Michel Foucault; pastoral power; sheep

Brendon Murphy, The Technology of Guilt, Australasian Journal of Legal Philosophy, Volume 44, 2019, pp. 64-99

PDF of article (Copyright Brendon Murphy)

Introduction

Arguably, the most important event in criminal law is the determination of guilt. Indeed, the entire intellectual architecture of criminal law is directed towards a moment when a court declares the subject guilty, or not. That determination, through ‘due process of law’, is essential to the legitimation of punishment. Without this mechanism, punishment is simply an exercise in violence and oppression. The declarative moment, at the conclusion of a rule-governed process of evidence and reason, transforms the brutality of the state into lawful enforcement of law and legitimate action in the eyes of the world. This process is fundamental to the political and intellectual economy of the criminal law, and necessarily invites questions: what is this process; where did it come from; and what are its characteristics? This article aims to answer these questions by drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, situated in a legal analytic, for the purpose of proposing new ways of thinking about the concept of guilt, and how it is determined in criminal law. The overarching position of the paper is that a genealogy of guilt reveals ancient links between modern techniques for determining guilt, theology, and the construction of truth. We begin by considering the idea of guilt and how the criminal law makes that assessment.

Evans, B., Johnson, H.
Responding to the problem of ‘food security’ in animal cruelty policy debates: building alliances between animal-centred and human-centred work on food system issues
(2020) Agriculture and Human Values, 37 (1), pp. 161-174.

DOI: 10.1007/s10460-019-09979-2

Abstract
Research on ethical issues within food systems is often human-centric. As a consequence, animal-centric policy debates where regulatory decisions about food are being made tend to be overlooked by food scholars and activists. This absence was notable in the recent debates around Australia’s animal live export industry. Using Foucault’s tools, we explore how ‘food security’ is conceptualised and governed within animal cruelty policy debates about the live export trade. The problem of food security produced in these debates shaped Indonesians as ‘victims’ of food insecurity due to the nation’s inability to produce sufficient quantities of protein. This understanding of the problem reproduced the dominant framing of food security as a problem for developing countries addressed by increasing global food production. The underlying premise uncritically accepted in Australia’s debates on live export trade was that intensive animal agriculture, and Australia’s live export trade specifically, were essential to alleviating global food insecurity. Drawing on our findings, we show how dominant representations of ‘food security’, and related regulatory and technological trajectories, flourish where alliances between animal and food activists, scholarship, and movements are weak. Accordingly, we argue for agri-food scholars to take up opportunities to contribute to the policy discussions about the treatment of animals to effectively expand the kinds of problems, solutions, and strategies of resistance produced in the discourses surrounding food system issues. © 2019, Springer Nature B.V.

Author Keywords
Animal cruelty; Discourse; Food activism; Food security; Live export