Foucault News

Archive: Neoliberalism: a Foucauldian Perspective (2011)

Clare O'Farrell

9 March 2016

Călin COTOI, Neoliberalism: a Foucauldian Perspective, International Review of Social Research, Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2011, 109-124

Full PDF

Abstract:
The contemporary investigations on power, politics, government and knowledge are profoundly influenced by Foucault’s work. Governmentality, as a specific way of seeing the connections between the formation of subjectivities and population politics, has been used extensively in anthropology as neoliberal governmentalities have been spreading after the 1990s all over the world. A return to Foucault can help to clarify some overtly ideological uses of ‘neoliberalism’ in nowadays social sciences.

Keywords:
governmentality, governance, ethnography, neoliberalism

Stephen Legg, Subject to truth: Before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

3 comments

9 March 2016

Stephen Legg, Subject to truth: Before and after governmentality in Foucault’s 1970s, Environment and Planning D, February 25, 2016
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775816633474

Abstract
In this article, I situate Foucault’s governmentality analytics between his first lecture course (On the Will to Know, 1970–1971) and his first course after his two ‘governmentality’ lectures (On the Government of the Living, 1979–1980). The lectures are interconnected by a shared interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex as well as by different but related obsessions with the production of truth: the earlier, with truth as fact; the latter, with truth as self-relation. The former analyses discourses of truth, law, inquiry and sovereignty in ancient Greece. The latter focuses on early Christian individual manifestations of truth (baptism, penance and spiritual direction) forming a genealogy of confession and, Foucault suggests, of western subjectivity itself. This article uses the analytical categories of governmentality, usually used to analyse regimes of government, to perform a comparative reading of the lecture courses, charting the continuities and ruptures in their various studies of episteme, techne, identities, ethos and problematisations. This suggests that the earlier lectures outline the birth of the sovereign–juridical compact that modern governmentalities would emerge through and against, whereas the later lectures use the term ‘governmentality’ less, but enable the analysis of the conduct of conduct to progress to the ethical scale of self-formation.

Keywords
Foucault governmentality truth subjectivity Christianity confession

Surveillance Is Still About Power (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

8 March 2016

Jeffrey Vagle, Surveillance Is Still About Power, Just Security, February 9, 2016

Since the Snowden revelations in 2013, surveillance has gone from a somewhat arcane term of art used mainly by scholars, spies, and tinfoil hat types, to a household word that now comes up in conversations on such far ranging topics as national security, law enforcement, advertising, education, health and fitness, and even toys. While the general concept appears straightforward — one party watching another — the conversation can quickly become bogged down in technical details that can easily confuse non-experts. But what we should not lose in the noise is the fact that surveillance is, at its core, about the establishment, use, and maintenance of power, a relationship Michel Foucault understood well.

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S’écrire soi-même (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

2 comments

7 March 2016

Delphine Merx, S’écrire soi-même, Implications philosophiques

Open access article

Résumé
Résumé : La notion de « subjectivation » interroge ce processus qui, d’un sujet malléable et à déterminer, fait surgir une certaine constitution du soi, et les moyens de cette formation. Paul Ricœur et Michel Foucault se sont chacun à leur tour penchés sur cette question, en étudiant plus précisément le rôle de l’écriture dans cette structuration éthique du soi : du récit classique ricœurien aux écrits mineurs foucaldiens, du sujet comme lecteur puis comme créateur, les deux philosophes ont chacun développé une conception originale de la fonction de l’écriture. En adoptant deux méthodes profondément différentes, Paul Ricœur et Michel Foucault, à travers un dialogue fécond, mettent en avant deux pôles distincts à l’œuvre dans le rapport à l’écriture, celui de la maîtrise de soi chez le premier, celui de la création de soi chez le second.

Abstract
The notion of « subjectivation » questions the process that turns a malleable subject into a determinate subject, and the means of this formation. Paul Ricœur and Michel Foucault investigated this issue by analysing the role of writing in the ethical structuration of the self: both philosophers developed an original conception of the function of writing by studying either classical narrative or minors writings; the subject as reader or as writer. With very distinct methods, and through fruitful dialogue, they highlighted two different roles of writing in relationship to the subject: one of self-discipline and one of self-creation.

Living the Neo-liberal University (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

6 March 2016

Stephen J. Ball, Living the Neo-liberal University, European Journal of Education, Volume 50, Issue 3, pages 258–261, September 2015

DOI: 10.1111/ejed.12132

Full pdf available on research gate

Opening paragraphs
‘Each of my works is a part of my own biography. For one or other reason I had occasion to feel and live those things’ Truth, power, self: an interview (Foucault, 1988, p. 11)

I was a child of Beveridge , of the British post-War welfare state, of free milk and orange juice, of NHS dentistry. I am now a neo-liberal academic working for a global HE brand, ranked in international comparison sites for performance-related pay. Increasingly, in relation to this shift and the life I lead, I am, as Judith Butler puts it, ‘other to myself precisely at the place where I expect to be myself’ (Butler, 2004).

The practices of government and technologies of policy that make up and constantly re-make higher education (HE) nationally and globally have transformed the life of the university over the past 25 years. The funding and accountability of and access to HE have been changed in many material and affective ways. Concomitantly, what it means to learn, to teach and research in HE have also changed. The practices and technologies to which I refer include annual reviews, league tables and rankings, impact narratives, CVs, performance-related pay, the granting of degree-awarding powers to commercial providers, off-shore campuses, student fees, expanding overseas recruitment, and Public-Private Partnerships of all sorts.

How to Desire Differently: Home Education as a Heterotopia (2015)

Clare O'Farrell

2 comments

5 March 2016

Harriet Pattison, How to Desire Differently: Home Education as a Heterotopia, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 49, Issue 4, pages 619–637, November 2015

DOI: 10.1111/1467-9752.12130

Abstract
This article explores the co-existence of, and relationship between, alternative education in the form of home education and mainstream schooling. Home education is conceptually subordinate to schooling, relying on schooling for its status as alternative, but also being tied to schooling through the dominant discourse that forms our understandings of education. Practitioners and other defenders frequently justify home education by running an implicit or explicit comparison with school; a comparison which expresses the desire to do ‘better’ than school whilst simultaneously encompassing the desire to do things differently. These twin aims, however, are not easy to reconcile, meaning that the challenge to schooling and the submission to norms and beliefs that underlie schooling are frequently inseparable. This article explores the trajectories of ‘better than’ and ‘different from’ school as representing ideas of utopia and heterotopia respectively. In particular I consider Foucault’s notion of the heterotopia as a means of approaching the relationship between school and other forms of education. Whilst it will be argued that, according to Derrida’s ideas of discursive deconstruction, alternative education has to be expressed through (and is therefore limited by) the dominant educational discourse, it will also be suggested that employing the idea of the heterotopia is a strategy which can help us explore the alternative in education.

Quel est l’héritage de Michel Foucault? (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

2 comments

4 March 2016

Quel est l’héritage de Michel Foucault?

Sophie Joubert, Avec Frédéric Gros, philosophe, professeur à Sciences Po, coordinateur de la Pléiade Michel Foucault, Radio France Information, Diffusion : vendredi 8 janvier 2016

Podcast

Impossible de parler de la folie, de la prison ou de l’histoire de la sexualité sans citer le nom de Michel Foucault.

Il a inventé une nouvelle manière de faire de la philosophie et bouleversé le paysage de la pensée. Professeur star du collège de France à partir de 1969, sa réputation a fait le tour du monde notamment aux Etats-Unis où il fut avec Deleuze et Derrida le représentant de la French Theory.

A la frontière de l’histoire, de la philosophie, ou même de la fiction, son œuvre a fait bouger durablement les lignes de partage disciplinaires et a ouvert de nouveaux champs de recherche notamment dans le monde anglo-saxon. En novembre dernier, les éditions Gallimard ont fait paraître le tome 2 de ses œuvres complètes, mettant en exergue l’érudition et la méticulosité de l’entreprise foucaldienne. Michel Foucault est mort du sida le 25 juin 1984.

Comment lire son œuvre aujourd’hui ? Comment peut-elle éclairer notre présent, notamment les questions de gouvernementalité et de surveillance qui traversent l’actualité ? Autour de la question « Quel est l’héritage de Michel Foucault ? », la réalisation est signée Cécile Bonici.

Non-normative critique. Foucault and pragmatic sociology as tactical re-politicization (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

3 March 2016

Magnus Paulsen Hansen, Non-normative critique. Foucault and pragmatic sociology as tactical re-politicization, European Journal of Social Theory February 2016 vol. 19 no. 1, 127-145

doi: 10.1177/1368431014562705

Abstract
The close ties between modes of governing, subjectivities and critique in contemporary societies challenge the role of critical social research. The classical normative ethos of the unmasking researcher unravelling various oppressive structures of dominant vs. dominated groups in society is inadequate when it comes to understand de-politicizing mechanisms and the struggles they bring about. This article argues that only a non-normative position can stay attentive to the constant and complex evolution of modes of governing and the critical operations actors themselves engage in. The article outlines a non-normative but critical programme based on an ethos of re-politicizing contemporary pervasive modes of governing. The analytical advantages and limitations of such a programme are demonstrated by readings of both Foucauldian studies and the works of and debates regarding the French pragmatic sociology of Boltanski and Thévenot.

Keywords
Boltanski critique Foucault politics pragmatic sociology re-politicizing Thévenot unmasking

Governmentality and guru-led movements in India, Some arguments from the field (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

2 March 2016

Samta P Pandya, Governmentality and guru-led movements in India, Some arguments from the field, European Journal of Social Theory February 2016 vol. 19 no. 1, 74-93

doi: 10.1177/1368431015602355

Abstract
The concept of governmentality has a textual and philosophical basis as well as being concerned with what might be called the practices of government. This article discusses and develops the governmentality argument with respect to the guru-led movements. It outlines the basics of Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality, its analytical frame, the fact that governmentality moves beyond only the practices of the state and its nuances in a neoliberal frame of reference, drawing on Zygmunt Bauman and others. It then discusses the governmentality of guru-led movements through: (1) the political acts and powers of the gurus; (2) the supplementary and complementary efforts to aid the state by the guru-led movements; (3) instances of resistance and taking on the state, and (4) the flipside of governmentality, which manifests as hegemony, Hindutva politics and Hindu nationalism. Through the governmentality argument, aspects of the surveillance, discipline, control, interactivity and competition of the guru-led movements emerge. What is discussed is a post-disciplinary model of governance which devolves power downwards from crumbling state institutions to new agencies of control, in this case, the gurus and their institutions. This devolution, however, is not without its tensions and the article also argues that guru governmentality betrays traces of hybridity and non-linearity.

Keywords
field arguments governmentality guru-led movements India

Beneath rationalization: Elias, Foucault, and the body (2016)

Clare O'Farrell

2 comments

1 March 2016

Bowen Paulle, Beneath rationalization: Elias, Foucault, and the body,European Journal of Social Theory February 2016 vol. 19 no. 1 39-56

doi: 10.1177/1368431015602355

Abstract

Elias and Foucault ended up making the same core discovery about the same fundamental social process, which we term the ‘social constraints towards self-discipline’ process. We show how three distinct biographical and intellectual factors were important in guiding them toward this discovery: (1) their shared exposure to philosophical traditions associated with Heidegger’s break from Husserl; (2) their common, sustained contact with ‘clinical’ practices; and (3) the traumatic events each experienced in relation to intentional injury and death.

Keywords
clinical practices Elias embodiment Foucault Heidegger rationalization self-control trauma