Foucault News

Navazhylava, K., Peticca Harris, A., Elias, S.R.S.T.A.
YouTube’s Yoga with Adriene as a somametamnemata: Exploring experiences of self-care and wellness in times of crisis (2023) Organization, 30 (3), pp. 573-596.

DOI: 10.1177/13505084221145543

Abstract
Drawing on the Foucauldian technologies of the self, this study explores how individuals re-envision practices of wellbeing outside of traditional organizational contexts during extreme events. Based on a thematic analysis of 7234 comments posted on the Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel in 2020, this study unpacks a technologically mediated practice of self-care, which we conceptualize as somametamnemata. Our findings illustrate three entangled aspects of somametamnemata relating to yoga, a form of bodywork: Caring about self through practicing yoga online; caring about self and others through sharing about yoga in written comments; and caring about self and others through responding to shared verbalizations of yoga. This study distinguishes somametamnemata from known practices of self-care, advancing existing literature on technologies of self by overcoming the dichotomy between negative views of ill-being and positive views of wellbeing. By situating the potentiality of individual wellbeing within ill-being, we shift debates and discussions of “corporate wellness” beyond organizational boundaries. © The Author(s) 2023.

Author Keywords
bodywork; crisis; Foucault; ill-being; self-care; self-writing; technologies of self; technology; wellbeing; yoga

Chicolino, Martín, Las violencias masculinas en la psico-sexo política de Michel Foucault. Brujas, posesas, locas, intersexuales y prostitutas, Nuevo Pensamiento 13 (22). https://p3.usal.edu.ar/index.php/nuevopensamiento/article/view/6829
Open access

Resumen
En torno a la teoría del poder foucaultiana sobrevuela una recriminación, aún vigente: Foucault habría problematizado la sexualidad desde la perspectiva de un sujeto indiferenciado y de género neutro. Dicha ―neutralización sexo-genérica‖ explicaría por qué su teoría del poder ―omite‖ referirse al fenómeno de la caza de brujas (como tecnología patriarcal de disciplinamiento específicamente dirigida contra el cuerpo de las mujeres). El presente trabajo se propone una inversión completa del problema: no nos preguntamos si Foucault caracterizó a las mujeres en tanto que ‗víctimas‘ de las violencias patriarcales, sino que nos preguntamos si (y cómo) caracterizó Foucault a los varones, es decir, a los ‗sujetos‘ activos que ejercieron dichas violencias patriarcales contra las mujeres (creadores de los dispositivos y tecnologías de poder). No nos preguntamos si en sus obras Foucault ―nombra‖ o habla ―acerca de‖ las mujeres, sino si politizó el papel de los varones en el ejercicio psico-sexual del poder, y si politizó el carácter masculino inmanente a todo ejercicio del poder (tanto en la sociedad antigua, moderna, o contemporánea). Este estudio en torno al papel y la función activa que Foucault atribuyó a los varones nos permitirá contrastar si aquellas recriminaciones constituyen (o no) un malentendido. Para ello, reconstruiremos el itinerario foucaultiano en torno a las violencias masculinas (patriarcales) para así hacer visible y audible al mismo tiempo a las fugas femeninas, a las resistencias, luchas y militancias femeninas (las máquinas de guerra amazónicas) en contra de dichos poderes patriarcales de disciplinamiento, normalización, cuerdismo y patologización.

Bernal Marcos, M.J., Zittoun, T., Gillespie, A.
Diaries as Technologies for Sense-making and Self-transformation in Times of Vulnerability (2023) Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science

DOI: 10.1007/s12124-023-09765-0

Abstract
Diaries have been generally understood as “windows” on sense-making processes when studying life ruptures. In this article, we draw on Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of self-writing as a “technology of the self” and on sociocultural psychology to propose that diaries are not “windows” but technologies that aid in the sense-making. Concretely, we analyzed three non-exhaustive and non-exclusive uses of diary writing in times of vulnerability: (1) imagination of the future and preparation to encounter difficulties; (2) distancing from one’s own experience; and (3) creating personal commitments. Our longitudinal data comprised three public online diaries written over more than twenty years, belonging to three anonymous individuals selected from a database of more than 400 diaries. We analyzed these three diaries by iterating between qualitative and quantitative analysis. We conclude that: (1) beyond their expressive dimension, diaries are technologies that support the sense-making process, but not without difficulties; (2) diaries form a self-generated space for dialogue with oneself in which the diarist also becomes aware of the social nature of her life story; (3) diaries are not only technologies for the Socratic “know thyself” but also technologies to work on oneself, especially in terms of the personal perspective on the past or the future; and (4) the practice of diary writing goes beyond sense-making towards personal development and the desire to transform one’s life trajectory. © 2023, The Author(s).

Author Keywords
Diaries; Life course; Sense-making; Technologies of the self; Vulnerability

Index Keywords
adult, article, case report, clinical article, female, human, human experiment, imagination, lifespan, quantitative analysis, vulnerability, writing

He, L.
A sociological (Re)construction of the reflexive self: A convergence between Foucault and classical Confucian ethics (2023) Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 64 (2), pp. 279-291.

DOI: 10.1111/apv.12370

Abstract
The emergence of a body of work on ethics since the 1990s with a special interest in the self in the Western academia, inspired by Michel Foucault’s earlier work, resonates with a concomitant renewed scholarly interest in classical Confucian ethics both in China and internationally. An emphasis on culture and the rejection of a Euro-centric universalist self in these bodies of work accompanies the disavowal of the very possibility of a generic reflexive self. This article seeks to critically examine the ontological positions on the self of these bodies of work, of Foucault’s later thoughts, and of classical Confucian ethics.

It is argued that there is a theoretical affinity between Foucault’s later thoughts and classical Confucian ethics, with both philosophers acknowledging reflexivity as a universally inherited nature of self and making a special consideration of cultural equality and commonality. The examination includes advocacy for a more nuanced approach to notions of cultural equality that relies on targeted research and intercultural dialogue to avoid any predetermining of cultural differences, to allow better-informed appreciation of differences, and to develop a more dynamic conceptualization of culture. This article concludes by initiating a discussion about the design of an integrated approach to cultivate reflexivity through training practices that bring together Foucauldian and Confucian ideas. © 2023 Victoria University of Wellington and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Author Keywords
classical Confucianism; cultural particularism; ethics; Foucault; self

Index Keywords
advocacy, conceptual framework, cultural relations, ethics, integrated approach, social construction, theoretical study; China