Foucault News

Ronald E. Butchart, What’s Foucault Got to Do with It? History, Theory, and Becoming Subjected, History of Education Quarterly, Issue 2, Volume 51, May 2011, pages 239–246.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-5959.2011.00333.x

Extract
The three essays before us constitute an indictment of the field of the history of education for its neglect of theory. Read linearly, from the Introduction through Coloma, the indictment becomes increasingly strident, moving from a gentle call for greater consideration of the potential contributions of theory for historical writing to a condemnation of the field for its parochial “indifference, imperviousness, and perhaps even resistance” to theory. As one practitioner within the field who shares with these authors a keen relish for theory and philosophy of history, I regret that the challenge to the field to attend more carefully to the possibilities of theory has been presented in exactly this form. My regret flows from the indictment’s incoherent form, from its misleading evidentiary base, from its curious move from a broad embrace of multiple theoretical stances to a narrow, crabbed insistence on only one deeply problematic theory as acceptable evidence of the field’s theoretical sophistication, and from the stunning effort in the last essay to appropriate and deploy language as power in order to marginalize and exclude from historical inquiry all but the narrowest range of discourse traditions. I will take up each of those issues in turn.

Juritzen TI, Grimen H, Heggen K., ‘Protecting vulnerable research participants: A Foucault-inspired analysis of ethics committees’. Nursing Ethics. Jun 6 2011
https://doi.org/10.1177/09697330114038

Abstract
History has demonstrated the necessity of protecting research participants. Research ethics are based on a concept of asymmetry of power, viewing the researcher as powerful and potentially dangerous and establishing ethics committees as external agencies in the field of research. We argue in favour of expanding this perspective on relationships of power to encompass the ethics committees as one among several actors that exert power and that act in a relational interplay with researchers and participants. We employ Michel Foucault’s ideas of power as an omnipresent force which is dynamic and unstable, as well as the notion that knowledge and power are inextricably intertwined. The article discusses how research ethics committees may affect academic freedom. In addition it is pointed out that research participants could be harmed – not only by unfortunate research practices, but also by being subjected to the protective efforts of ethics monitoring bodies.