Foucault News

Kjaran, J.I., Kristinsdóttir, G. Working on violent self: how perpetrators of IPV narrate about and position themselves during and after therapy? An example from Iceland (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

27 June 2023

Kjaran, J.I., Kristinsdóttir, G.
Working on violent self: how perpetrators of IPV narrate about and position themselves during and after therapy? An example from Iceland (2023) Nordic Social Work Research, 13 (2), pp. 348-361.

DOI: 10.1080/2156857X.2021.1991443

Abstract
In this paper the aim is to explore how men who have been violent and abusive in their intimate relationships reconstituted their violent behaviour, by working on the self. How did they change or transform themselves through therapy? Which strategies did they use when caring for the self and which subject positions were adopted? The paper also explores how interviewees draw on therapeutic discourse when talking about themselves and their violent practices. To seek answers, the narratives of seven research participants are interpreted by drawing on Foucault´s work on the ethics of the self and how subjects apply various techniques when taking care of and working on it.

Our findings indicate that by confessing to violence and abuse in intimate relationships, these men become recognized as intelligible subjects who can change themselves by working on the self through therapy and self-inspection. Most of them came to be reflective and tried to find explanations for their violent acts. Some were partly repentant. However, as discussed in the paper, they also made excuses for the violence committed and did not critically question their own privileges and entitlements as men. Instead, they often blamed external factors or own mental illnesses for their actions. These can have implications for service providers as discussed further in the paper. Despite considerable therapeutic insights these men still need guidance and increased awareness of gendering aspects of IPV and insights into how they are constituted by the dominant discourses of masculinity. ©, Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Author Keywords
ethics of the self; fathering; Foucault; gender; Iceland; IPV; masculinity; therapeutic discourse

Menard, R., Törrönen, J. Immigration, Multiculturalism and Biopolitical Projects on ‘Difference’: Negotiating Intersecting Social Divisions From Positions of Privilege and Disadvantage (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

26 June 2023

Menard, R., Törrönen, J.
Immigration, Multiculturalism and Biopolitical Projects on ‘Difference’: Negotiating Intersecting Social Divisions From Positions of Privilege and Disadvantage (2023) Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 13 (1), pp. 1-23.

DOI: 10.33134/njmr.513

Abstract
Informed by Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, in this study we examine how lived experiences of privilege and disadvantage may be at play in respondents’ negotiations of Finnish discourses on immigration, multiculturalism and ‘difference’. The main research material was produced by Finnish citizens whose practices around sociability and gender/sex have been formally marked as ‘abnormal’ by welfare state and health care institutions: Asperger’s diagnosed persons and persons with transgender life experiences. We analyse the research material – which was elicited using vignettes – using tools from critical discourse analysis that we implement through an intersectional lens. In their negotiations of the vignettes, participants partly identify with conflicting views. On the one hand, they approach discourses and practices on and around ‘difference’, immigration and multiculturalism through homogenising and subjugating categorisations, viewpoints and assumptions. On the other hand, they also question some of them, leaving potential openings for social transformation. COPYRIGHT: © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons NonCommercialNoDerivatives Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits unrestricted distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited, the material is not used for commercial purposes and is not altered in any way. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Marx, S. et al, “I didn’t quit. The system quit me.” Examining why teachers of color leave teaching (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

25 June 2023

Marx, S., Lavigne, A.L., Braden, S., Hawkman, A., Andersen, J., Gailey, S., Geddes, G., Jones, I., Si, S., Washburn, K.
“I didn’t quit. The system quit me.” Examining why teachers of color leave teaching
(2023) International Journal of Leadership in Education

DOI: 10.1080/13603124.2023.2218113

Abstract
Teachers of color leave the teaching profession at nearly three times the rate of their white counterparts. This qualitative study examines the stories of four former teachers of color who left the teaching profession. Participants’ decisions to leave teaching are contextualized with literature on the role of school leadership and teacher attrition and a conceptual framework of critical race theory and Foucault’s notion of the body as text. Journey maps and interviews are the main data sources. Findings include the lack of control participants had over their bodies, their language, and their relationships in teaching, as well as the resilience they found in leaving the profession. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Erbilen, S.Ü., Uysal, M. The Common Point of Countries Successful Policies in the Struggle Against COVID-19: Women Leaders (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

24 June 2023

Erbilen, S.Ü., Uysal, M.
The Common Point of Countries Successful Policies in the Struggle Against COVID-19: Women Leaders (2023) SAGE Open, 13 (2)

DOI: 10.1177/21582440231179458

Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, which is one of the biggest epidemics of the last century and can be regarded as a global tragedy, leaders had to mobilize many resources of their countries quickly and persuade their citizens to change their routine behavior. The approach followed by the leaders of the country in their efforts to convince their people has been an important factor in their success or failure. This paper aims to examine with Michel Foucault’s notion of biopower, and discourses and behaviors of women leaders in countries against the global pandemic which cost high life tool gave harsh messages to the humanity. For this purpose, leadership examples in Finland, Iceland, Taiwan and New Zealand will be examined in detail using the discourse analysis technique. As a result, in current times when populist and autocratic leader style is on the rise, women leaders not only took their countries to success, but they also managed to inspire other countries. More importantly, the struggle of women leaders against the pandemic revealed that a different management style is possible. © The Author(s) 2023.

Author Keywords
biopower; COVID-19; discourse analysis technique; leadership qualities; women leaders

Isike, C., Foucault’s Panopticon as a Theoretical Frame for Understanding the Big Brother Reality Show (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

21 June 2023

Isike, C.
Foucault’s Panopticon as a Theoretical Frame for Understanding the Big Brother Reality Show in Christopher Isike, Olusola Ogunnubi, Ogochukwu Ukwueze (Eds). Big Brother Naija and Popular Culture in Nigeria: A Critique of the Country’s Cultural and Economic Diplomacy, pp. 17-30. Palgrave Macmillan (2023)

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-19-8110-4_2

Abstract
The idea of the Panopticon concept presents a useful theoretical framework to understand the Big Brother Reality show generally and the Big Brother Naija (BBN) is not precluded. From its physical architectural form as a surveillance structure to its metaphoric and Foucauldian conception as norms, laws and policies which regulate behavior and compliance including its contemporary meaning in a digital world, the Panopticon concept sheds light into the BBN show. This chapter therefore deploys it to make sense of the reception and criticism of the show by Nigerians in ways that can help understand and measure the socio-political, cultural, and economic value of BBN against the intrusive gaze of the Big Brother panopticon. In this way, the chapter presents a good theoretical anchor of the arguments presented in the chapters of this book. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

Author Keywords
Bentham; Big Brother Naija; Big Brother Reality Show; Foucault; Panopticon

Hafeez, G.A. Counter-conduct and Persistence in Selected Works by Egyptian Women Writers (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

20 June 2023

Hafeez, G.A.
Counter-conduct and Persistence in Selected Works by Egyptian Women Writers
(2023) Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures, 15 (1), pp. 347-363.

DOI: 10.47012/jjmll.15.1.18

Abstract
In this paper, Michel Foucault’s concept of “counter-conduct” and Judith Butler’s concept of “persistence” are deployed, explored, and applied to rethink the relationship between the dominant patriarchal power and women’s dissent as represented in the writings of Latifa al-Zayyat (1923-1996), Nawal El Sadaawi (1931-2021), and Salwa Bakr (1949). Analyzing al-Zayyat’s The Open Door [al-Bāb al-maftūḥ], El Sadaawi’s short story “The Picture” [al-Sura] and Bakr’s “Thirty-one Beautiful Green Trees” [Ihdā wa thālathūn shajarah jamīlah khadrā] in terms of the twofold approach allows in-depth explorations of various strategies of dissent and different modes of counter-conduct and persistence in the selected literary texts. It also allows for rigorous and authentic evaluation of how the female protagonists-Layla, Narjis and Kareema – endeavor to carve out other ways of being that lead to the emergence of their new subjectivities and their gendered identities. © 2023 JJMLL Publishers/Yarmouk University. All Rights Reserved.

Author Keywords
Agency; Counter-Conduct; Everyday Acts of Resistance; Persistence; Women’s Writing

Stephanie Cox, Showers: Discourse, Disability, and the State (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

19 June 2023

Stephanie Cox, Showers: Discourse, Disability, and the State, PhD thesis, Auckland University of Technology, Aotearoa New Zealand, 2023

Open access

Abstract
Showering is a pleasurable part of a daily hygiene routine for many people. However, for those who are unable to stand or step up into the typical shower unit, it is a space of exclusion. In Aotearoa New Zealand, occupational therapists can apply to the State for funding to modify shower units so that people may wheel into their shower, shower while seated, or be assisted with showering. However, this funding comes from a limited budget in which the need always exceeds the allocation. As such, a system for assessing who is able to get funding has been established. From the outside, it seems that this funding solves the issue of inaccessible showers. Although not everyone can get what they need, one could presume that the system for prioritisation addresses the needs of those whose are the greatest. However, disabled people’s access to suitable housing in Aotearoa New Zealand has recently been described as grim. Issues with inaccessible housing and showers appear frequently in mainstream media, and numerous studies have found that the need for accessible houses is far from being met.

In this study, I use a Foucauldian genealogical approach to interrogate the history of the shower. This reveals the discursive construction of the typical shower unit and shows the shower to be a political actor in the exclusion of disabled people from private dwellings. I have gathered texts from the birth of showers through to modern day to show how the government of individuals and populations shaped the shower and produced the idea of showering as an essential everyday activity. I analysed these texts using the concept of the dispositif to reveal the governmentalities that have shaped where and how disabled people live. I conclude that the current system of housing modification maintains biopolitical disablism, and is part of excluding disabled people from neoliberal life. I argue that this is an extremely dangerous practice, pushing disabled people (including the elderly) into institutional living where they are excluded from life.

This study provides a unique contribution to the argument for radical change to the way housing is governed. It shows how the shower has become a technology for investment in human capital for those who can stand and step up. While the possibility of showers that can be accessible for all has been realised, the established order has remained; and the very system that is supposed to address problems with access contributes to the dangerous exclusion of disabled people from community life. However, the recent establishment of the Ministry of Disabled People provides some hope that discriminatory practices will be confronted, and practices such as Ministry of Health housing modifications will be rethought or done away with entirely.

Paige Allen, What is Biopower & Biopolitics? Perlego Study Guides (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

17 June 2023

Paige Allen, What is Biopower & Biopolitics? Perlego Study Guides, 2023

Definitions and origins: types of power

Biopower and biopolitics, terms associated with Michel Foucault, describe the political regulation of life processes. Foucault writes in The History of Sexuality, Volume 1 (1976, [1990]) that biopower employs “numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations” by entangling itself with biological processes and cultivating life deemed socially useful. Biopolitics can be defined as “politics that deals with life.” However, this feels overly simplistic or even redundant. Doesn’t all politics deal with life? In Biopolitics: An Advanced Introduction (2011), Thomas Lemke investigates how the relationship between life and politics has been historically understood in two ways — life as the basis of politics and life as the object of politics — and presents Foucault’s ideas as an explicit break with these traditions (Lemke, 2011). Foucault first mentions biopolitics in a 1974 essay, and he most systematically outlines the theory in his lectures at the Collège de France from 1975 to 1978 and in The History of Sexuality. In these works, Foucault articulates a new understanding of the relationship between life and politics that continues to inform critical theory today.

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Paige Allen, What is Necropolitics? Perlego Study Guides (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

17 June 2023

Paige Allen, What is Necropolitics?, Perlego Study Guides, 2023

Necropolitics: origins and definitions

Necropolitics describes a form of political power that functions by bringing about the social and literal deaths of individuals and populations through direct action or deadly neglect. According to Michel Foucault, the essential engine of power is the right to life and death. Necropolitics is interested in how life is subjugated to the power of death in extreme and everyday ways.

The concept of necropolitics is rooted in Foucault’s theories of biopolitics. Foucault proposes that, before the eighteenth century, power functioned through the right to “take life or let live” (The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, 1976, [1990]), or sovereign power (see our study guide on Foucault’s theories of power).

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Chandwani, et al, National Digital Infrastructure and India’s Healthcare Sector: Physicians’ Perspectives (2023)

Clare O'Farrell

no comments

15 June 2023

Chandwani, R., Edacherian, S., Sud, M.
National Digital Infrastructure and India’s Healthcare Sector: Physicians’ Perspectives (2023) Qualitative Report, 28 (2), pp. 360-386.

DOI: 10.46743/2160-3715/2023.4964

Abstract
Patient-centric digital infrastructure can potentially enhance the efficiency of healthcare systems. However, even in developed nations, evidence suggests low adoption rates for such infrastructure and lack of support from clinicians is considered as one of the most critical hindering factors. In this study, we examine physicians’ perceptions of the proposed large-scale information technology initiative in India that aims to transform the health sector and provide universal health coverage to all residents of India. We employed the information ecology lens to understand the broader changes in the healthcare system that could result from the initiative. We use focus group discussion and in-depth interviews to comprehend the perceptions of doctors about the initiative. Drawing upon Foucault’s conceptualization of power, we find that physicians, the key stakeholders in this initiative, are skeptical about the changes in the locus of power in the new ecosystem. Specifically, they perceive that knowledge power has shifted from a historical “expert knowledge power” to power related to “data management.” The physicians believe that changes are expected to manifest through monitoring, controlling, and managing the data rather than providing knowledge-based services. We present recommendations to engage physicians’ perspectives in implementing large-scale patient-centric digital infrastructure. Copyright 2023: Rajesh Chandwani, Saneesh Edacherian, Mukesh Sud, and Nova Southeastern University.

Author Keywords
Aadhaar; change management; India; information ecology; interpretive research; large scale health IT project; power dynamics