Foucault News

Phillips, M., Woodham, A., Hooper-Greenhill, E.
Foucault and museum geographies: a case study of the English ‘Renaissance in the Regions’
(2015) Social and Cultural Geography, 34 p. Article in Press.

DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2015.1009854

Abstract
This paper explores the subject of museum geographies, focusing particularly on the development of museum policies in a changing political context. The empirical focus is the emergence and transformation of the museum programme Renaissance in the Region, which is linked to the concepts of primary, secondary and tertiary spatialisations presented by Michel Foucault. The paper discusses the development of the programme and how it transformed aspects of the primary, secondary and tertiary spatialisations of museums in England, before focusing attention on the geography of school visits to museums. The results of two extensive studies of school visits to museums in the programme suggest that large numbers of visits come from schools located in areas with high indices of multiple deprivation and income deprivation affecting children. It is argued that this social geography reflects the tertiary spatialisation of museums linked to their emergence in areas of past industrial development, although practices linked to reconfigurations of the primary and secondary spatialisation as part of the Renaissance in the Regions programme may also have played some role. The paper concludes by discussing recent changes in government policy and the degree to which the ‘New Renaissance’ policy may signify reductions in the social reach of museums into areas of social deprivation and exclusion.

Author Keywords
deprivation; Foucault; museum geographies; Renaissance in the Regions; social inclusion; spatialisations

Kavoura, A., Ryba, T.V., Chroni, S.
Negotiating female judoka identities in Greece: A Foucauldian discourse analysis
(2015) Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 17, pp. 88-98.

DOI: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2014.09.011

Abstract
Objectives: The objectives of this paper are to trace the discourses through which female Greek judokas articulate their sporting experiences and to explore how they construct their identities through the negotiation of sociocultural beliefs and gender stereotypes. Design: This article is based on interview data from a larger ethnographic research with women judo athletes, grounded in a cultural praxis framework. Method: Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted during fieldwork in Greece. Interview data were analyzed drawing on a Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis. Results: We identified four concepts-biology, gender, femininity, and judo/sport-that were central to unearthing the discourses in which female Greek judokas constructed their identities. Female athletes (strategically) negotiated multiple identities, each serving different purposes. Conclusion: The gender power dynamics in Greek society at large are reproduced in the sporting experience of Greek female judokas. Although women have agency to negotiate their identity, they tend to accept the “given” subject positions within dominant discourses of gender relations. By doing so, female athletes become agents in the reproduction of patriarchal power.

Author Keywords
Cultural praxis; Discourse analysis; Ethnography; Gender; Martial arts

Cox, B.D., Pringle, R.
‘Muscles for Motherhood’: A Genealogical Analysis of Medicalised Ways of Knowing Female Footballers in New Zealand, 1921 and 1973–1975
(2015) International Journal of the History of Sport, 15 p. Article in Press.

DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2014.989497

Abstract
Michel Foucault argued that females gradually became integrated into the sphere of medical practices through a process which he termed as a ‘hysterization of women’s bodies’ (Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume One: An Introduction, New York: Pantheon Books, 1978, 104). In this article, we draw on Foucault to examine how women’s bodies, exercise and motherhood impacted on the historical development of female football in New Zealand within two time periods (1921 and 1973–1975). Employing his genealogical framework, we analyse newspaper reports, historical documents and conducted in-depth interviews to demonstrate how medical/scientific discourses both constrained and enabled the participation of women in football. We conclude that while medical knowledge was used to publicly disqualify the legitimacy of the female footballer in 1921, and hence her abrupt disappearance from the sporting realm, the absence of such medical knowledge in the early 1970s, combined with societal changes associated with second wave feminism, paved the way for the eventual ‘normalization’ of female football in New Zealand.

Author Keywords
Foucault; genealogy; health; medicalization of bodies; women’s football

Kristjánsdóttir, S.
Becoming Christian: A Matter of Everyday Resistance and Negotiation
(2015) Norwegian Archaeological Review, 19 p. Article in Press.

DOI: 10.1080/00293652.2015.1015602

Abstract
The diverse appearances of church buildings, iconography and altered burial practices have commonly been used to exemplify the expansion of Christianity in early medieval Europe. Less emphasis has been placed on how the common European dealt with the Christian transformation in daily life, perhaps because of the tendency in research to distinguish ritual actions from secular. To become Christian did not necessarily entail greater religiousness or deeper religious devotion but centred rather on how people synchronized their everyday lives, both religious and secular, in accordance with Christian doctrine and the laws imposed by the Roman Church. However, social transformations do not emerge exclusively from political or administrative institutions, such as the Church or other ruling authority; they also emerge interactively, through the general public, who are equally capable of exercising power by taking part in societal discourse. With reference to examples from early medieval Iceland, this article argues for the application of Foucault’s theory of power relations and everyday resistance to research on the adoption of Christianity, beyond time and space.

Author Keywords
dualism, Christianization; Foucault; post-colonialism; power relations

Colin Koopman, ‘Two Uses of Michel Foucault in Political Theory: Concepts and Methods in Giorgio Agamben and Ian Hacking’, Constellations (1), 0 Article first published online: 19 MAY 2015

DOI: 10.1111/1467-8675.12153

First paragraph in lieu of abstract

Putting Foucault to Work

It is difficult to locate a single area of intellectual inquiry in the humanities and social sciences where the work of Michel Foucault is not taken seriously today. Foucault’s influence is perhaps most incisive where the humanities and social sciences come into contact with politics as an object, site, or field of inquiry. Foucault’s influence and importance may then be a function, at least in part, of the fact that in so many disciplines today politics and politicization are crucial domains for the work of critical thought. Consider, in this light, the following quick list of Foucauldian neologisms that are pervasive in almost every field of study that purports to address politics today: discipline, biopolitics, governmentality, power-knowledge, subjectivation, genealogy, archaeology, and problematization, to name just a few. These and other Foucauldian terms have been adopted for the purposes of political inquiry in subfields as diverse as political theory, political philosophy, political anthropology, political sociology, cultural history, geography, and much else besides.