Foucault News

Erzsébet Strausz, Being in Discourse with Foucault:The Practice of Life, Theory & Event, Volume 16, Issue 4, 2013

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Abstract
This article performs an experimental reading of Foucault’s selected writings as a creative intervention into the operation of “discourse” and our formation in it both as academic “knowers” and subjects of contemporary government. Drawing inspiration from Foucault’s intellectual project read as a series of responses to his diagnoses of “our historical present”, it seeks to develop a practice of writing and scholarly discussion that provides alternative vistas of engagement between writer, reader and text. Ultimately, the project sets out to re-politicize everyday practices of academic life, (in the hope of) enabling the emergence of new experiences of both discourse and self.

This article is part of a symposium titled: The Power of Life’s Excess: Contesting Sovereignty from Sites that do not exist
Editors: Andreja Zevnik, Erzsébet Strausz, and Simona Rentea

Fadyl, J.K., Nicholls, D.A., McPherson, K.M.
Interrogating discourse: The application of Foucault’s methodological discussion to specific inquiry (2013) Health (United Kingdom), 17 (5), pp. 478-494.

Abstract
Discourse analysis following the work of Michel Foucault has become a valuable methodology in the critical analysis of a broad range of topics relating to health. However, it can be a daunting task, in that there seems to be both a huge number of possible approaches to carrying out this type of project, and an abundance of different, often conflicting, opinions about what counts as ‘Foucauldian’. This article takes the position that methodological design should be informed by ongoing discussion and applied as appropriate to a particular area of inquiry. The discussion given offers an interpretation and application of Foucault’s methodological principles, integrating a reading of Foucault with applications of his work by other authors, showing how this is then applied to interrogate the practice of vocational rehabilitation. It is intended as a contribution to methodological discussion in this area, offering an interpretation of various methodological elements described by Foucault, alongside specific application of these aspects.

Author Keywords
Discourse analysis; issues in research methodology; post-structuralism/post-modernism; research methodology

DOI: 10.1177/1363459312464073

Nicolas Thirion, Des rapports entre droit et vérité selon Foucault : une illustration des interactions entre les pratiques juridiques et leur environnement, Revue interdisciplinaire d’études juridiques, 2013/1 (Volume 70), pp. 180-88

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Premières lignes
Les deux questions posées aux contributeurs de la présente livraison de la Revue interdisciplinaire d’études juridiques sont d’une ampleur telle qu’il serait présomptueux de prétendre y apporter une réponse générale en quelques paragraphes. Tout au plus, peut-on en souligner l’intérêt dans une perspective de renouvellement de la recherche dans…

PLAN DE L’ARTICLE

1 – Des véridictions du droit aux véridictions des savoirs
2 – Des véridictions extra-juridiques aux véridictions juridiques
Conclusion

Matthew Ball,
Queer Criminology, Critique, and the “Art of Not Being Governed” (2013) Critical Criminology, pp. 1-14.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-013-9223-2

Abstract
This article builds on previous work that argues that a useful path for a “queer/ed criminology” to follow is one that takes “queer” to denote a position. It suggests that one way of developing such an approach is to adopt a particular understanding of critique-specifically one that draws from Michel Foucault’s view of critique as “the art of not being governed.” It then charts some of the possible directions for such a “queer/ed criminology.” While such an approach to critique has previously been discussed within critical criminologies, this article suggests that it is useful for queer criminologists to explore the opportunities that it affords, particularly in order to better appreciate how “queer/ed criminology” might connect to, draw from, or push against other currents among critical criminologies, and help to delineate the unique contribution that this kind of “queer/ed criminology” might make.

DOI: 10.1007/s10612-013-9223-2

Antoine Doré, L’exercice des biopolitiques Conditions matérielles et ontologiques de la gestion gouvernementale d’une population animale, Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances, 2013/4 (Vol. 7, n° 4), pp. 837-855

Full article

À partir de ses recherches consacrées à l’histoire des formes de gouvernement dans les sociétés occidentales, Michel Foucault décrit une forme de pouvoir spécifique de la modernité qu’il nomme « bio-pouvoir » et qu’il définit comme une « gestion calculatrice de la vie » (Foucault, 1976, p. 184) où « des procédés de pouvoir et de savoir prennent en compte les processus de la vie et entreprennent de les contrôler et de les modifier » (Foucault, 1976, p. 187). La biopolitique devient alors, chez cet auteur, un concept analytique central pour penser la naissance de la société libérale marquée par le développement des techniques de gestion à distance des individus ou, pour reprendre les mots de Gilles Deleuze (Deleuze, 1990), des techniques de « contrôle à l’air libre ». L’invention des dispositifs d’identification et de suivi des individus, associée à la généralisation des techniques administratives et statistiques de calcul et de prévision des conduites, marquent le passage d’un régime de pouvoir à un autre : avec l’articulation d’une discipline des individus-corps à une régulation des individus-population, le pouvoir souverain de l’âge classique laisse progressivement place au biopouvoir.

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Marianne Dortants and Annelies Knoppers,
Regulation of diversity through discipline: Practices of inclusion and exclusion in boxing (2013) International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 48 (5), pp. 535-549.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690212445279

Abstract
Boxing gyms in the Netherlands, which were traditionally bastions of ‘white’ men, have become more and more diverse. Since boxers with different ethnic backgrounds and women have joined boxing clubs, trainers need to manage this emerging diversity in their gyms. This empirical study of a gym in the Netherlands, where full participation of women is the norm, attempts to gain insights about practices of and experiences in the regulation of social inclusion and exclusion. We explore points of connection between Foucault’s conceptualization of regulation and disciplinary techniques and the regulatory and embodied practices of boxing. In this case study, observations and interviews were conducted to explore how trainers address diversity of members in training sessions and at matches. The results show how the participation of male and female boxers with different ethnic backgrounds was normalized by trainers. The gym, with a traditional hierarchical and patriarchal culture, enabled trainers to use disciplinary techniques to normalize their construction of what is normal in the gym. These trainers are not all-powerful, however, and had to negotiate their construction of boxers in interaction with others. The use of disciplinary techniques produced both uniformity and differentiation and, through an on-going process of negotiation, they defined who would be included or excluded. © The Author(s) 2012.

Author Keywords
boxing; discipline; diversity; inclusion and exclusion; normalization

DOI: 10.1177/1012690212445279