Hi
I do not know of any direct discussion to ethnicity in Foucault's work.
(doesn't mean there isn't, just my ignorance)
However, his discussion of sexuality (hist. of sex. vol.1) deals with
the relation between power and some kind of authentic 'personal identity'
that the last century connected with freed sexuality. I think some analogy
can be made. Foucault basically inverts the relations between authenticity
and power. Where 'the discourse of sex' says: you need to enter on an arduous
path, fighting immense difficulties (and we we'll offer for the job our great
institutional support - psycholohy, medicine, education, etc) in order to find your
true self.' Foucault claims the real relation is something like: 'you need to struggle
to find your 'true self' because this gives the institutions of power an opportunity to
invest your body and your life.'
One could begin with a similar hypothesis in connection to ethnicity. When power
says, 'we need to reform education so that all the people in the territory will know
the heritage and language of their nation,' perhaps the issue is 'all the people need
to know the heritage of the nation, in order to enable a reform in education - a way
of investing the territory with the mechanisms of power.'
A Foucauldian analysis of the various discourses of ethnicity: linguistics, history,
literary studies, etc, assuming that their fundamental concept is a construct
like 'sexuality', will look at the ways in which these discourses and their institutional
bases help to invest bodies and territory with the mechanisms of power.
it's a limited perspective, but that's one thread worth considering.
On Fri, 31 Jan 1997 13:17:30 +0200 (SST), Lubna Nadvi wrote:
>
>Hi,
>
>I'm presently working on researching notions of authenticity and authentic
>identities.
>My focus is on the desire to attain an "authentic state of being/ authentic
>identity", through the "construction" of ethnicity. I would be very
>interested to know if there are any works by Foucault on the notion of
>Authenticity as a form of power, or anything related to it.
>
>Regards
>
>Lubna Nadvi
>Dept. of Philosophy
>UDW
>South Africa
>
-------------
Gabriel Ash
Notre-Dame
-------------
I do not know of any direct discussion to ethnicity in Foucault's work.
(doesn't mean there isn't, just my ignorance)
However, his discussion of sexuality (hist. of sex. vol.1) deals with
the relation between power and some kind of authentic 'personal identity'
that the last century connected with freed sexuality. I think some analogy
can be made. Foucault basically inverts the relations between authenticity
and power. Where 'the discourse of sex' says: you need to enter on an arduous
path, fighting immense difficulties (and we we'll offer for the job our great
institutional support - psycholohy, medicine, education, etc) in order to find your
true self.' Foucault claims the real relation is something like: 'you need to struggle
to find your 'true self' because this gives the institutions of power an opportunity to
invest your body and your life.'
One could begin with a similar hypothesis in connection to ethnicity. When power
says, 'we need to reform education so that all the people in the territory will know
the heritage and language of their nation,' perhaps the issue is 'all the people need
to know the heritage of the nation, in order to enable a reform in education - a way
of investing the territory with the mechanisms of power.'
A Foucauldian analysis of the various discourses of ethnicity: linguistics, history,
literary studies, etc, assuming that their fundamental concept is a construct
like 'sexuality', will look at the ways in which these discourses and their institutional
bases help to invest bodies and territory with the mechanisms of power.
it's a limited perspective, but that's one thread worth considering.
On Fri, 31 Jan 1997 13:17:30 +0200 (SST), Lubna Nadvi wrote:
>
>Hi,
>
>I'm presently working on researching notions of authenticity and authentic
>identities.
>My focus is on the desire to attain an "authentic state of being/ authentic
>identity", through the "construction" of ethnicity. I would be very
>interested to know if there are any works by Foucault on the notion of
>Authenticity as a form of power, or anything related to it.
>
>Regards
>
>Lubna Nadvi
>Dept. of Philosophy
>UDW
>South Africa
>
-------------
Gabriel Ash
Notre-Dame
-------------