Foucault News

Meenal Tula & Rekha Pande
Re-inscribing the Indian courtesan: A genealogical approach
(2014) Journal of International Women’s Studies, 15 (1), pp. 67-82.
https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol15/iss1/5/

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Abstract
Women historiography has been one of the major concerns of the feminist movement particularly since 1960s. Looking at the figure of the courtesan in India-its histories, representations, repression and re-emergence, the paper seeks to problematize discourses of both Universalist and minority history writing that have been built around these women. In the context of Post-Colonial theory, and in the light of the dynamic nature of the categories of Truth, Power, Knowledge, and Discourse, the paper seeks to salvage Foucault’s methodology of writing a genealogical history as opening new avenues within the history of the courtesan in India in particular and women’s history writing in general.

Author Keywords
Courtesans; History writing; Indian women; Women on the margins; Women’s history

Paul Hanna
Foucauldian Discourse Analysis in Psychology: Reflecting on a Hybrid Reading of Foucault When Researching “Ethical Subjects”
(2014) Qualitative Research in Psychology, 11 (2), pp. 142-159.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2013.853853

Abstract
This article attempts to address a novel dilemma the author recently faced when undertaking qualitative psychological research into sustainable tourism. The article embraces notions of reflexivity to highlight how the research process was far removed from the sanitised version often presented in research methods textbooks. The article provides a reflexive account of the struggles of analysing Internet and interview data in relation to sustainable tourism via the dominant version of Foucauldian Discourse Analysis familiar to many qualitative/critical psychologists. Turning to an account of Foucault’s later work on ethics, this article presents an alternative approach to Foucauldian Discourse Analysis that adopts a hybrid reading of Foucault’s work on power, knowledge, and ethics. Drawing on Foucault’s four precepts helps us explore the ways individuals “cultivate the self as an ethical subject,” and interview data are presented to highlight the ways such an approach can enrich analysis. It is concluded that while presenting issues surrounding understandings of structure and agency, such an approach did offer a pragmatic solution to an ethical question and may indeed be useful in a range of other areas.

Author Keywords
ethics; Foucauldian Discourse Analysis; knowledge; power; reflexivity

Coll, S.
Power, knowledge, and the subjects of privacy: understanding privacy as the ally of surveillance
(2014) Information Communication and Society. Article in Press.

Abstract
The aim of this article is to argue that privacy, rather than serving only as a countermeasure against surveillance, can also be seen as its ‘partner-in-crime’. Normative statements made by governments and companies on privacy can be regarded as a tool of governance in service of informational capitalism. Initially defined as a fundamental freedom, privacy has become a precondition for a blossoming economy in the context of the information society. The notion of privacy, as a critique of information society, has been assimilated and reshaped by and in favour of informational capitalism, notably by being over-individualized through the self-determination principle. To develop this idea, this article builds on the results of a study on the loyalty programmes run by the four biggest retailers of Switzerland and on the Foucauldian concept of biopower. Indeed, sexual liberation and the development of scientific knowledge on sexuality, the democratization of privacy, and the emergence of scientific discourses about privacy are processes that show intriguing similarities. Like sexuality, privacy has become a ‘power-knowledge’ related to moral standards defining what privacy should be. It produces ‘subjects of privacy’ who are supposed to take care of it according to the official conception of privacy advocates and of the legislature. Finally, we suggest understanding the conception of privacy as a terrain of power struggle between the promoters of an informational capitalism based on surveillance of citizens and consumers, and those who would prefer to promote privacy as a common good leading society to more democracy and freedom.

Author Keywords
Big Data; biopower; Foucault; loyalty programmes; sociology; surveillance/privacy

DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2014.918636