P is for Power (Michel Foucault) Theoretical puppets
Michel Foucault from A to Z. Foucault is working on his biceps. Watch the video to find out if this has something to do with his concept of power!
P is for Power (Michel Foucault) Theoretical puppets
Michel Foucault from A to Z. Foucault is working on his biceps. Watch the video to find out if this has something to do with his concept of power!
Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought (CCCCT)
Friday, April 19 12:15-2:15 pm
Join the CCCCT and affiliated scholars on April 19th from 12:15-2:15 to hear about recent and on-going work in the field of critical theory. Scholars at the forefront of such research will present their current projects and discuss with other participants.
This event will include presentations from:
Clécio Lemos, Ph.D. of Law, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)
“The Third Foucault and His Possible Impacts on Criminology”
Daniele Lorenzini, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Warwick & Fellow of the CCCCT,
“On Possibilizing Genealogy”
Dr Jacopo Martire, Senior Lecturer in Legal Theory, University of Bristol School of Law
“A Foucauldian Interpretation of Modern Law”
Michaela Soyer, CUNY Hunter College
“Lost Childhoods: Poverty, Trauma, and Violent Crime in the Post-Welfare Era”
Ahlqvist, T. Dynamic elements in regional development: an explorative genealogical analysis of the region of Southwest Finland
(2018) European Planning Studies, 26 (12), pp. 2427-2447.
DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2018.1530198
Abstract
The paper suggests an explorative interpretative approach for conceptualizing regional change based on Foucault’s theory of genealogy. The theoretical outline is built on two key concepts of Foucault’s genealogy, (descent) and (emergence). The paper conceptualizes the heuristic notion of ‘adaptive element’ on the basis of descent, and the notion of ‘disruptive element’ on the basis of emergence. The paper demonstrates the use of these concepts in a brief case study of Southwest Finland from 1985 to 2001. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Author Keywords
descent; emergence; Foucault; Genealogy; regional change; regional development
Index Keywords
conceptual framework, genealogy, regional development, theoretical study, twentieth century; Finland
Delacampagne But don’t the public expect the critic to provide them with precise assessments as to the value of a work?
Foucault I don’t know whether the public do or do not expect the critic to judge works or authors. Judges were there, I think, before they were able to say what they wanted. It seems that Courbet had a friend who used to wake up in the night yelling: “I want to judge, I want to judge.” It’s amazing how people like judging. Judgment is being passed everywhere, all the time. Perhaps it’s one of the simplest things mankind has been given to do. And you know very well that the last man, when radiation has finally reduced his last enemy to ashes, will sit down behind some rickety table and begin the trial of the individual responsible.I can’t help but dream about a kind of criticism that would not try to judge, but bring an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life; it would light fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the wind, and catch the sea-foam in the breeze and scatter it. It would multiply, not judgments, but signs of existence; it would summon them, drag them from their sleep. Perhaps it would invent them sometimes – all the better. All the better. Criticism that hands down sentences sends me to sleep; I’d like a criticism of scintillating leaps of the imagination. It would not be a sovereign or dressed in red. It would bear the lightning of possible storms.
Michel Foucault. (1997) [1980]. ‘The Masked Philosopher’. In J. Faubion (ed.). Tr. Robert Hurley and others. Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984. Volume One. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, Allen Lane, p. 323 . [trans. mod]
Short commentary on this passage on my personal writing blog
Vinge, H. Farmland conversion to fight climate change? Resource hierarchies, discursive power and ulterior motives in land use politics
(2018) Journal of Rural Studies, 64, pp. 20-27.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jrurstud.2018.10.002
Abstract
In December 2013, local politicians celebrated with a champagne toast as the municipality of Trondheim received permission from the Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation to develop 110 ha (272 acres) of high quality farmland for housing and business. The primary reason for this decision was the promotion of a more climate-friendly city. The land in question had been singled out as especially important for agriculture in previous planning processes. Based on documents, media texts and interviews, this article utilises situational analysis to scrutinise this puzzling political decision. It emphasises the importance of discourse in local decision making regarding scarce resources. Local interests and global issues are connected and made sense of in what Foucault (1972) called a “system of meaning”, which allows powerful economic interests and climate change mitigation measures to justify the permanent loss of farmland. As food production is invisible on the local political agenda, the re-implantation of multifunctional urban agriculture in the local food system could be a viable approach to slow further conversion of high quality farmland on the urban fringe. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd
Index Keywords
agricultural land, climate change, decision making, land use change, politics; Norway, Sor Trondelag, Trondheim
Présentation
Le Centre Michel Foucault est une association fondée le 31 mai 1986 à l’initiative de chercheurs internationaux qui ont accompagné le développement du travail et de la pensée de Michel Foucault.
Initialement créé pour rassembler documents, archives et travaux liés à l’œuvre de Foucault, pour faciliter et coordonner des recherches se rapportant à sa pensée ou s’inspirant de ses orientations et de ses méthodes, et pour développer les échanges internationaux autour de cette œuvre, le Centre Michel Foucault a également accompagné durant les trois dernières décennies la publication des Dits et écrits puis des cours au Collège de France, en lien avec des activités de recherche menées à partir des archives déposées à l’Institut Mémoires de l’édition contemporaine et, depuis 2013, à la Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Le Centre Michel Foucault continue à ce jour d’accompagner la publication de cours, conférences et matériaux inédits, notamment la série « Foucault inédit » chez Vrin et la série « Cours et travaux antérieurs au Collège de France » chez Seuil-Gallimard.
Activités
Le Centre Michel Foucault s’est fixé comme objectif, depuis sa création, de soutenir et de promouvoir les recherches en cours sur l’œuvre de Michel Foucault.
Cette mission principale comporte plusieurs volets :
Christian William Callaghan, Critical perspectives on international pharmaceutical innovation: Malthus, Foucault and resistance (2019) Critical Perspectives on International Business, 15 (1), pp. 68-86.
https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-11-2017-0078
Abstract
Purpose: This paper aims to argue that certain insights offered by Kuhn and Foucault may be of use to those seeking to resist a global paradigm of inequality in access to the outcomes of pharmaceutical development. It is further argued that these relationships are not independent of certain power relationships. This critical review seeks to highlight certain of these power relationships, and to suggest how they might be better managed to ensure more equitable outcomes for those in society that are most vulnerable to innovation failure.
Design/methodology/approach: This research takes the form of a critical review paper, seeking to develop theory though a synthesis of literature. Findings: Unlike market incentives, it might be the research process itself that is most vulnerable to stakeholder resistance to slow and unequal delivery of life-saving pharmaceutical development. Given that a lack of responsiveness to societal needs can itself be considered unethical, Kuhnian theory predicting pharmaceutical innovation failure is related to what Foucault describes as a system of oppression, whereby power relationships disadvantage those most vulnerable and powerless. Research limitations/implications: Given the rise of movements like citizen science and participant-led research, as well as new ethical frameworks premised on increasing accountability in science, Foucault’s principles are considered to echo a general trend towards the democratisation of science, and towards increasing the responsiveness of pharmaceutical development to societal needs.
Originality/value: A novel synthesis of literature is undertaken, offering useful theoretical insights into how social actors might contribute to enabling a more responsive system of international healthcare business. © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Author Keywords
Citizen science; Foucault; Innovation failure; Pharmaceutical development; Research productivity; Resistance
Bresnihan, P. Revisiting neoliberalism in the oceans: Governmentality and the biopolitics of ‘improvement’ in the Irish and European fisheries
(2019) Environment and Planning A, 51 (1), pp. 156-177.
Abstract
Foucault’s account of the emergence of biopolitics in the late 18th century helps frame the political economy of ‘improvements’ as an environmental project linked to the well-being of the population. Since the 1970s, biopolitical concerns have shifted towards non-human populations and the reproduction of natural resources and ecosystems. This has become evident in the European fisheries, where after decades of exploitation greatly intensified since the 1960s, the extractive demands of the fishing industry have caught up with the reproductive capacities of most commercially targeted fish stocks. This contradiction has given rise to a new political economy of ‘improvements’ that seeks to sustain the biological health of commercially targeted fish populations while maintaining an economically profitable fishing industry. Central to this transition is the active role that fishers are expected to play in sustainably managing the fish stocks they exploit while adapting to ‘green’ market opportunities. Tradeable quota systems, eco-accreditation schemes and community-based resource management have all emerged as managerial strategies for inciting the active participation of fishers in this ‘common’ project of sustainable development. Drawing on Foucault’s perspective of governmentality, this paper argues that these strategies represent distinct but overlapping apparatuses of neoliberal governmentality that are representative of broader tendencies within environmental governance today. © The Author(s) 2018.
Author Keywords
Biopolitics; environmental governance; fisheries; governmentality; neoliberalism
Pier Luigi Sacco, Sendy Ghirardi, Maria Tartari, Marianna Trimarchi, Two versions of heterotopia: The role of art practices in participative urban renewal processes (2019) Cities, 89, pp. 199-208.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.02.013
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to take part in the debate about power relationships in contemporary cities between the agents of urban renewal and the local communities, as mediated by cultural and artistic interventions and projects. Our study proposes a new conceptual frame, focused on the comparison between two notions of heterotopia as theoretical alternatives for the interpretation of cities as social and participatory spaces. The notions we consider may be traced to two key thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Henri Lefebvre, and lay the foundation for alternative analytical paradigms of the contemporary urban condition, in relation to artistic and cultural practices in the public space. We draw upon these two alternative readings of heterotopia to explore the implications of the interaction of artistic practices with the urban space as a contested terrain from the viewpoint of power relationships. In our analysis, we find that Foucault’s notion of heterotopia is potentially conducive to top-down planning processes and to gentrification. Lefebvre’s notion is instead possibly more suited to participatory practices as strategies of reactivation of the right to the city. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd
Author Keywords
Art practices; Henri Lefebvre; Heterotopia; Michel Foucault; Participative urban regeneration
Ofer Parchev, Biopower, Sadomasochism, and Pastoral Power: Acceptance via Transgression (2019) Sexuality and Culture, 23 (1), pp. 337-355.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-018-9563-x
Abstract
The transposition of biopower from the state to the individual has been a major preoccupation of biopower scholarship in recent decades. While some researchers have found grounds for optimism in the diminution of state control over people’s bodies, others see the change as merely a more sophisticated version of state control which has become, if anything, more invasive of individual lifestyle choices. In this paper I show how the institutionalization of hierarchical power relations does justify optimism about ways of confronting the complex mechanisms of control entailed in modern biopower. I claim that the crux of control in our information society derives from the transposition of the pastoral power described by Michel Foucault to the modern state and that the institutionalization of hierarchical power relations can constitute an effective countermeasure to that power. Hierarchical power exchanges can generate a social and cultural framework which, while operating according to the logic of biopower, expands modes of thought and practice beyond the unified thinking that contributes significantly to the modern state’s control over the individual. © 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Author Keywords
Biopower; Erotic power exchange; Pastoral power; Sexuality
Index Keywords
article, controlled study, human, human experiment, institutionalization, logic, optimism, sadomasochism, sexuality, thinking
