Foucault News

Ben Mylius, Towards the Unthinkable: Earth Jurisprudence and an Ecocentric Episteme (2013)

Clare O'Farrell

12 April 2016

Ben Mylius, “Towards the Unthinkable: Earth Jurisprudence and an Ecocentric Episteme” (2013) 38 Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 102-122

Full text available

Abstract
This paper argues that Earth Jurisprudence aims to bring about a change in episteme, using the law, from our current anthropocentric episteme to a new ecocentric one: a process that requires a critique of current epistemic objects and methods, and a gradual articulation of alternative objects and methods for new legal and governance systems to draw upon.

The Prologue and Epilogue are literary reflections on Foucault’s concept of ‘the erasure of the human’, and its two readings: ‘the end of the human as species’, and ‘the end of the human as episteme. The Preliminaries section lays conceptual groundwork for subsequent sections, characterising the concept of episteme (1) as a priori configuration of mind; (2) as epoch in time; (3) as configured around ‘objects’ (all the ‘things’ that can be known) and ‘methods’ (all the ways of knowing them). It also characterises epistemic change (1) as abrupt and all-encompassing; (2) as positioned outside epistemology; (3) as involving the introduction of new objects and methods in a two-phase process. The section on Earth Jurisprudence’s Project discusses Earth Jurisprudence’s role in theorising and implementing potential new objects and methods using a critique of the existing episteme.

The final section begins such a critique. It proposes that current epistemic objects are configured by a dichotomy between Human and World, and critiques (1) the way this establishes and maintains false divisions and perpetuates hierarchies; (2) the way it stifles creative new approaches to interpreting the world, by confining the possible loci for meaning; (3) the way it valorises spatiality at the expense of the temporal. The critique also considers current epistemic methods as variations of the ‘Research Ideal’, examining (1) the way their push for ever-increasing specialisation hinders generalism and transdisciplinary work; (2) the way it leads to ‘knowledge of knowledge’ and insular, self-referential discourse; and (3) the way it valorises an unrealistic, unsustainable static model of a future world. Both critiques conclude with brief reflections on potential alternative objects and methods for a new episteme.

5 émissions sur Michel Foucault. Radio France (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

1 comment

12 April 2016

Michel Foucault, France Culture radio, Émissions • Hors-champs • Michel Foucault,
5 émissions, mars 2016

A l’occasion de la sortie dans la Pléiade de l’œuvre de Foucault, toute une semaine avec Michel Foucault, il s’agira de penser avec Michel Foucault, grâce à Michel Foucault et d’envisager Michel Foucault demain. Comprendre l’ampleur à la fois intellectuelle, politique, historique et philosophique de son œuvre, sans faire œuvre testamentaire, ni patrimoniale, en tentant de se projeter dans ce présent intense.

L’énigme Foucault: Daniel Defert et Fréderic Gros

Les enjeux théoriques de l’oeuvre de Foucault: Jean Birnbaum et Philippe Artières

Foucault, la société punitive et l’Amérique avec Bernard Harcourt

Didier Eribon: Michel Foucault, du philosophe au militant

La trajectoire philosophique et politique de Michel Foucault
Pour cette dernière émission consacrée au philosophe Michel Foucault, l’historien Patrick Boucheron, le militant anti-sida Daniel Defert et le philosophe Fréderic Gros explorent la trajectoire philosophique et politique de Michel Foucault aux côtés de Laure Adler.

With thanks to Colin Gordon for this news

Archive: From aboriginality to governmentality: the meaning of section 35(1) and the power of legal discourse (1998)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

11 April 2016

Hannigan, David, (1998) From aboriginality to governmentality: the meaning of section 35(1) and the power of legal discourse, Master of Laws thesis, University of British Columbia

Full text available

This thesis examines recent doctrinal developments regarding the aboriginal and treaty rights which are recognised and affirmed in s.35(l) of the Constitution Act, 1982. Specifically, it explores how the meaning of such rights is being constituted by diverse relations of power operating within specific ‘cites’ of struggle.

Chapter I is a brief introduction to recent transformations in the legal discourse of the Supreme Court and an overview of the methodologies being employed in this thesis. In this regard, the author undertakes an interdisciplinary approach to discourse analysis.

Chapter II draws upon the writings of Michel Foucault to make the argument for the analytical framework being utilised; namely, the study of ‘law’ within a ‘sovereign- discipline-government’ society.

Chapter III examines the relationship between the productive power of the disciplines and the legal discourse constituting the content of aboriginal rights; the purpose being to explore to what extent law ‘operates as a norm’ within this area. Additionally, it provides a lead into the discussion of ‘government’ by outlining the rationality underpinning the test for the justified governmental infringement of aboriginal and treaty rights.

Chapter IV, examines the relationship between the regulatory power of ‘government’ and the legal discourse around current treaty negotiations. Specifically, it explores the inter-dependency between rationalities of self-government and the governmental technologies associated with ‘advanced’ liberalism. In doing so, it focuses on an emerging treaty from British Columbia to assess the extent to which law is being used as ‘a tactic of government’.

Chapter V, examines the relationship between the deductive power of ‘sovereignty’ and the legal discourse constituting the content of Aboriginal title. It argues that recent developments require the Court to deal with the issue of legal pluralism. And to do so, in a way that lays a more successful foundation in law for the legitimate reconciling of the pre-existence of First Nations societies and the sovereignty of the Crown.

Chapter VI provides some concluding comments about the insights gained from the proceeding analysis. In doing so, it offers a brief discussion of how the proceeding specific analysis may relate to some recent work in post-colonial studies.

Biopolitics and the repressive hypothesis of the body: the case of swimming training in Finland (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

10 April 2016

Vaahtera, E.
Biopolitics and the repressive hypothesis of the body: the case of swimming training in Finland
(2016) Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 18 (2), pp. 142-153.

DOI: 10.1080/15017419.2015.1063538

Abstract
Iris Marion Young, a feminist theoretician, argued that patriarchal society inhibits women to cultivate capable bodies. In contrast, Foucauldian arguments have stressed that to view a certain historical situation as a consequence of repression, overlooks how the idea of repression is already a product of power. This article explores this nexus between Foucault and Young, and investigates how bio/thanatopolitical projects saturate the notion of the repressed body. The article investigates how the inability to swim has been connected with inhibition in Finland in the twentieth and early twenty-first century. It argues that the repressive hypothesis of the body generates the identification with able-bodiedness in the ways in which eventually favour athletic or otherwise capable bodies. Moreover, the assumption that incapability is an inhibited way of being makes able-bodiedness appear to be primary and original. Thus, the exploration of the repressive hypothesis helps us to understand the intricate mechanisms of ableism. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.

Author Keywords
ableism; biopolitics; Iris Marion Young; thanatopolitics; The repressive hypothesis

From Jurisdiction to Translation: Elite Power Under Advanced Neoliberalism (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

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9 April 2016

William Davies, From Jurisdiction to Translation: Elite Power Under Advanced Neoliberalism, Pre-print of article to appear in Theory Culture & Society

Abstract
The financial crisis, and associated scandals, created a sense of a juridical deficit with regard to the financial sector. Forms of independent judgement within the sector appeared compromised, while judgement over the sector seemed unattainable. Elites, in the classical Millsian sense of those taking tacitly coordinated, ‘big decisions’ over the rest of the public, seem absent. This article argues that the eradication of jurisdictional elites is an effect of neoliberalism, as articulated most coherently by Hayek. It characterises the neoliberal project as an effort to elevate ‘unconscious’ processes over ‘conscious’ ones, which in practice means elevating cybernetic, non-human systems and processes over discursive spheres of politics and judgement. Yet such a system still produces its own types of elite power, which come to consist in acts of translation, rather than judgment. Firstly, there are ‘cyborg intermediaries’: elites which operate largely within the system of codes, data, screens and prices. Secondly, there are ‘diplomatic intermediaries’: elites who come to narrate and justify what markets (and associated technologies and bodies) are ‘saying’. The paper draws on Lazzarato’s work on signifying vs asignifying semiotics in order to articulate this, and concludes by considering the types of elite crisis which these forms of power tend to produce.

Keywords
elites, neoliberalism, finance, Hayek, capitalism, Lazzarato

Foucault and Educational Ethics (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

8 April 2016

Bruce Moghtader, Foucault and Educational Ethics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Publisher’s site

About this book
In his works on ethics, Foucault turned towards an examination of one’s relationship with oneself and others. This differs from the modern approaches that explore the relationship between and the responsibilities of actors to each other by adopting criteria. Ethical criteria engender assumptions about the actors by focusing on their responsibilities. Instead of relying on criteria, Foucault’s writing and lectures contributed to an awareness of the activities we take upon ourselves as ethical subjects. His reconstruction of the Greco-Roman ethics seeks to examine the possibilities of the reconstitution and transformation of subjectivity. Through this, he offers an avenue of understanding the formation of ethical subjects in their educational interrelationships.

EDGES BLOG: CSC Interview with Daniel Zamora (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

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7 April 2016

EDGES BLOG: CSC Interview with Daniel Zamora. Cultural Studies blog, George Mason University, 12 March 2016

The Cultural Studies Program’s colloquium (CSC) series features talks by distinguished scholars from across the disciplines. Graduate student Dave Zeglen interviewed Daniel Zamora, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago. See below for the transcript.

Let us begin with your primary thesis, which has already stirred controversies and debates: How did Foucault understand neoliberalism, and how did he actually position himself vis-à-vis the shifting political currents of the 1970s? How was his thinking shifting on questions related to the social democratic welfare state? What factors contributed to Foucault’s open anti-socialism and anti-statism in the French context?

These are probably some of the most important questions to ask in order to understand Foucault’s relationship to neoliberalism. And we can’t understand that relationship without placing Foucault’s work within the French context of the mid-1970s. More specifically, Foucault’s work is situated in the conflict between old and new lefts, in the post-1968 left’s increasing opposition to the post-war left.

Julio Groppa Aquino, Fabiana Augusta Alves Jardim, Wearing Foucault’s Clogs: Biopolitics in Brazilian Educational Research (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

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6 April 2016

Julio Groppa Aquino, Fabiana Augusta Alves Jardim, Wearing Foucault’s Clogs: Biopolitics in Brazilian Educational Research, Sisyphus – Journal of Education, 2015, vol 3, no.3, 10-37.
https://doi.org/10.25749/sis.8900

Abstract
The article initiates by presenting the context and effects of the uses of biopolitics, a notion that Foucault frames during a period of theoretical transition, when he operates important displacements in his analytics of power. In the second section, we take 45 articles that appeared in Brazilian main journals in the field of education, during the past fifteen years, and that referred either to the notion of biopolitics or biopower. We noticed that the problems confronted by Foucault during this biopolitical interlude have undoubtedly found an echo in the angst, hopes and obstacles faced by Brazilian researchers during the post-dictatorial times. We believe this happened, among other reasons, because of the paradox they were witnessing: the first steps Brazil was walking towards democratization of relations and institutions, at the very same time neoliberal practices and reforms were introduced into the horizon.

Keywords
Michel Foucault, Biopolitics, Brazilian education, Educational research

The Limits of Neoliberalism: An Interview with Will Davies (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

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5 April 2016

The Limits of Neoliberalism: An Interview with Will Davies

Posted by Stephen Dunne in Management is too Important Not to Debate Blog on April 15, 2015

Stephen Dunne (henceforth SD): Can I ask you to recount, when you set out on the book, what you were trying to do and in relation to what body of work?

WD: The main question I had, following on from my PhD, concerned competition and competitiveness as forms of justification, or as sources of political authority. It appeared to me that appealing to competitive processes, or claiming that certain actions were going to be good for competitiveness or improve competition, was a basis on which to win consent to certain things. It seemed to be a form of justification or a way of legitimating certain types of action. I was interested in the fact that it was almost not tenable in today’s society and particularly in today’s policy establishment to be against competition or against competitiveness in some way. It was almost that to be against those ideas was to put yourself in some sort of irrational or futile position. And that immediately concerned me because it made me think about where these ideas came from.

[…]

It was only later that I started to become interested in the notion of neoliberalism. In the space of about three years, there were a series of very good critical historical books on neoliberalism as a distinct tradition of thought. In 2008 Foucault’s The Birth of Biopolitics was translated into English then in the summer of 2009 Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe’s The Road from Mont Pelèrin, a series of articles on different aspects of what they call The Neoliberal Thought Collective was also published. I think it was 2010 when Jamie Peck’s Constructions of Neoliberal Reason came out and much more recently there was Angus Burgin’s The Great Persuasion, the most historical and detailed history of the neoliberal intellectual movement, although probably also the least critical or theoretical.

Foucault points out that the key trait of markets from a neoliberal perspective is not that they facilitate exchange but that they facilitate competition. For liberals, the market is a space of equivalence in that two people come together and perform an act of exchange. Money is equivalent to a good or a service or a unit of labour. For neoliberals, the market is something which produces inequality between people. One person wins and another person loses and that is the key moral trait of markets for them. Suddenly I realised the reason I was interested in competitiveness was precisely this issue: competition as a mode of justification. This effectively means generating more inequality and preventing the push towards equality that was a trait of the socialists, Keynesians and social democrats: projects that initially prompted the creation of the neoliberal thought collectives as a critical response.

Archive: Of Prisons, Tropics and Bicycles: A Conversation with David Arnold (2010)

Clare O'Farrell

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4 April 2016

Rohan Deb Roy and David Arnold, Of Prisons, Tropics and Bicycles: A Conversation with David Arnold, Asian Medicine 6 (2010–11) 149–163

DOI:10.1163/157342110X606914
Full text on academia.edu

Abstract
David Arnold who retired this year as the Professor of Asian and Global History at the University of Warwick remains one of the most prolific historians of colonial medicine and modern South Asia. A founding member of the subaltern studies collective, he is considered widely as a pioneer in the histories of colonial medicine, environment, penology, hunger and famines within South Asian studies and beyond. In this interview he recalls his formative inspirations, ideological motivations and reflects critically on his earlier works, explaining various shifts as well as mapping the possible course of future work. He talks at length about his forthcoming works on everyday technology, food and monsoon Asia. Finally, he shares with us his desire of initiating work on an ambitious project about the twin themes of poison and poverty in South Asian history, beginning with the Bengal famine in the late eighteenth century and ending with the Bhopal gas tragedy of the early 1980s. This conversation provides insights into the ways in which the field of medical history in modern South Asia has been shaped over the past three decades through interactions with broader discussions on agency, resistance, power, everydayness, subaltern studies, global and spatial histories. It hints further at the newer directions which are being opened up by such persisting intellectual entanglements.

Keywords
Colonialism, medicine, subaltern, everyday, South Asia

Subsequently, Foucault has been the most important single inﬂuence on my work and my thinking about history. Of course, Foucault’s work takes many forms and it is the early Foucault that I tend to go back to, particularly Discipline and Punish and the Power/Knowledge interviews rather than the later Foucault of The History of Sexuality