Foucault News

de Bilbao Fabienne, « Le diagnostic comme symptôme », Cliniques méditerranéennes, 2019/2 (n° 100), p. 103-115.
DOI : 10.3917/cm.100.0103

La maladie d’Alzheimer est une maladie organique : tel est le dogme positiviste actuellement dominant. Cependant, le manque de fiabilité du diagnostic et les échecs répétés à trouver des traitements efficaces incitent à remettre en question l’hégémonie de ce dogme. Ceci est d’autant plus urgent qu’un dépistage de masse s’organise pour poser des diagnostics de plus en plus précocement. Ici, l’hypocrisie serait de se dire que c’est toujours pour le bien du patient qu’il est diagnostiqué. En accord avec la thèse foucaldienne sur la circularité propre au savoir et au pouvoir, le diagnostic, comme pratique discursive, constitue l’exercice d’un pouvoir qui produit des effets cliniques. Ces effets participent à la constitution d’un savoir qui renforce en retour ce pouvoir. Un discours qui créerait les conditions favorables à faire exister ce qu’il affirme. Sous couvert d’une rationalité emprunte de moralité, ce savoir-pouvoir, dont on devine l’impact mortifère, revêt des allures de sacrifice : celui du sujet inconscient. Il serait un partenaire actif du refoulement. C’est à ce titre que nous envisagerons l’acte diagnostic comme le symptôme du clinicien.

Barker, C. How to tell the political truth: Foucault on new combinations of the basic modes of veridiction, Contemporary Political Theory
Volume 18, Issue 3, 1 September 2019, Pages 357-378

DOI: 10.1057/s41296-018-0253-0

Abstract
This article pays close attention to Michel Foucault’s theory that political regimes are enlightened through courageous free speech. A Foucaultian enlightenment occurs not when philosophical reason completely replaces superstition and enthusiasm in the public sphere, but instead when the parrhesiast partially organizes competing claims to know and to speak the truth. While much of the recent scholarly literature on Foucault’s later lectures emphasizes the political importance of the parrhesiast, less attention has been paid to the overlap and/or incompatibility between parrhesia and the other modes of truth-telling. Below, I explain Foucault’s analysis of the basic modes of philosophical truth-telling: prophesy, philosophy, teaching, and parrhesia. I provide examples of speakers working within these modes in the ancient and modern world. I explain the overlap and tension between these modes, and I analyze Foucault’s partial organization of them through the image of the parrhesiast. I briefly compare Foucault’s position to the agonistic democratic theory of Chantal Mouffe and distinguish Foucault’s view from consensus-based views of public reason. Finally, I provide practical and theoretical examples of parrhesiastic activity in the contemporary world.

Ahmad, J. Serving the same interests: The Wood Green ricin plot, media–state–terror relations and the ‘terrorism’ dispositif, Media, War and Conflict
Volume 12, Issue 4, 1 December 2019, Pages 411-434
DOI: 10.1177/1750635218810922

Abstract
This article analyses the representations of terrorism that arise out of the BBC’s coverage of the Wood Green ricin plot (2003), the first instance of al-Qaeda-related activity in the UK during the ‘war on terror’. Inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, the article suggests that the BBC’s representations form part of an emergent ‘terrorism’ dispositif, or apparatus, which draws together seemingly disparate and antagonistic groups into a strategic, mutually-sustaining alliance. The analysis focuses on two weeks of BBC ‘News at Ten’ bulletins, alongside speeches and press releases issued by the Prime Minister and statements released by al-Qaeda’s leadership. In particular, the article suggests that the BBC’s representations inadvertently work to the advantage of elements within al-Qaeda and the British executive due to the fact that they portray the Wood Green events in ways that are tactically useful to both groups. As such, the article not only provides substantive new empirical insights into the way representations of terrorism were mobilized in the build-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but also shows how Foucauldian concepts can provide creative and innovative analytical tools for understanding the dynamics of the contemporary media–state–terrorism relationship. © The Author(s) 2018.

Jeroen Stevens and Bruno De Meulder, On Allotopia: The Spatial Accumulation of Difference in Bixiga (São Paulo, Brazil), Space and Culture
Volume 22, Issue 4, 1 November 2019, Pages 387-404
https://doi.org/10.1177/1206331218760772

Abstract
This article will unfold a longe durée spatial biography of the urban area of Bixiga (São Paulo, Brazil) to probe the particular role of space in the conflation of different cultural practices and territorial claims. The extended case study bridges indigenous, colonial, and postcolonial urbanization as they amalgamated an intricate assemblage of material and cultural strata. Combined historical urban analysis and fieldwork allow to uncover how the resulting urban milieu integrates discrepant urban worlds, perpetually iterating between centrality and marginality, innovation and degradation, oppression and resistance. Building on Foucault’s (1984) conception of heterotopia, Bixiga will surface as an allotopia, a place that accommodates, cumulates, and celebrates a multitude of differences. It sheds light, this way, on more insurgent histories of urbanism, where urban space is piecemeal forged through contentious struggles over space in the city. © The Author(s) 2018.