Category: Foucault

"starting from certain historical facts that serve as guidelines for research"

15/8/2020

"It is these movements that I will now attempt to bring into focus in a schematic way, bypassing as it were the repressive hypothesis and the facts of interdiction or exclusion it involves, and starting from certain historical facts that serve as guidelines for research. (13) " Michel Foucault and Robert J Hurley, The history of sexuality. Volume 1, Volume 1 (New York: Vintage, 1990).

Bringing history into a schematic drawing (literally), allows for the contextualisation of the problem in the present. Start from historical facts, and the swirl of events around them. If wondering WHERE to begin, start with a timeline.

In the first of two articles in Discover Society, I detail how any researcher (professional, hobbyist) can use histories taken as 'fact' to document or, in Foucault's words "emancipate" unknown histories.

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"his work as a toolbox"

14/8/2020

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Foucault's work is viewed by some as unfathomable.

I remember my first encounter with his work via the concept of governmentality - reading, re-reading aloud, making notes, re-reading, and then it made sense. This was early in my MA studies and the course, taught by a Foucaultian, used his work almost exclusively to make sense of how the law is used in global governance. From that moment of recognition, I moved on to Discipline and Punish which instantly helped me, a secondary teacher at the time, to make sense of the neoliberal downloads of practices into Ontario's secondary schools. From that point it became difficult to make sense of the problems and populations that became the object of my studies without turning to Michel Foucault for help.

Five years later, he would serve as the central theorist in my doctoral dissertation on women street traders - the 'heavy' behind both my theoretical framework and my methodology.

Thus, I am delighted to recall that he thought of his work as a 'toolbox' for others to use. An inspiration, guide, and mentor - his work is both accessible and an 'assistive technology' of sorts.

"Foucault nicely expresses the idea of his work as a toolbox in the following comments in a 1974 interview about his expectations for Discipline and Punish: 'I want my books to be a sort of toolbox that people can rummage through to find a tool they can use however they want in their own domain...I want the little book that I plan to write on disciplinary systems to be of use for teachers, wardens, magistrates, conscientious objectors. I don't write for an audience, I write for users, not readers.' " (emphasis added)

More late-night reading of Foucault: A Very Short Introduction by Gary Gutting (112-113). The extract is taken from 'Prisons et asiles dans le mécanisme du pouvoir’ in Daniel Defert and Francois Ewald (eds.), Dits et écrits, 1954-1988, four volumes (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), pages 523-4.

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"carceral archipelago" (Discipline and Punish)

11/8/2020

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Again, from late-night reading of Foucault: A Very Short Introduction by Gary Gutting (81):

"The most striking thesis of Discipline an Punish is that the disciplinary techniques introduced for criminals become the model for other modern sites of control (schools, hospitals, factories, etc.), so that prison discipline pervades all of modern society. We live, Foucault says, in a 'carceral archipelago' (DP, 298)."

This conjures a clear image of the sites of discipline that we dodge or land upon in daily life, and the disciplinary strategies embodied at each location. However, with time, it is clear that disciplinary strategies will create an archipelago of disciplinary strategies within a 'location' (i.e., food production, distribution, and sales). Similarly, within schools, smaller sites of control that use different forms of control (i.e., provincial policy - district application - application within a school - application from classroom to classroom).

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"...a historical causal explanation..."

5/8/2020

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From Foucault: A Very Short Introduction by Gary Gutting. Oxford University Press.

Page 47: "The forces that drive our history do not so much operate on our thoughts, our social institutions, or even our environment as on our individual bodies. So, for example, punishment in the 18thC is a matter of violent assaults on the body: branding, dismemberment, execution, whereas in the 19thC it takes the apparently gentler but equally physical form of incarceration, ordered assemblies, and forced labour. Prisoners are subjected to a highly structured regimen designed to produce 'docile bodies'. A Foucaultian genealogy, then is a historical causal explanation that is material, multiple, and corporeal."

This aligns with the observation that there does not have to be a straight line from a single event/action/thought/process in the past to a given outcome in the present. Thoughts and institutions, etc., are not omitted among the "forces that drive our history" but the actions on the body are more powerful in cementing those forces and the continued shaping of thoughts, social institutions, and the environment.

This operates outside of the example of crime and punishment. Application: schools and codes of conduct.

The students are given a dress code that includes not only dress but a checklist for physical appearance (i.e., visible tattoos and piercings) that operates on the individual body
Observations and classifications are made about 'socially appropriate dress' and corresponding judgements (operates on thoughts)
Becomes part of the culture of the institution and, ultimately, the 'environment' of that institution
Continued action on the body (dress, personal appearance) creates a visual that encourages compliance, makes the 'offender' stand out, and serves as a visual reminder of what is not acceptable; disciplinary action (stopping the student in the halls, questioning) serves as a caution to others to encourage continued compliance.

What is the problem that requires a genealogy? Particular students are disproportionately affected by the school's code of conduct and government policy.

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"starting from certain historical facts that serve as guidelines for research"

"his work as a toolbox"

"carceral archipelago" (Discipline and Punish)

"...a historical causal explanation..."

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