Re: Foucault and the elusive body.


> >How shall I understand the relationship betwenn those two saying. Are
> >they contradictory or not..
>
> I don't think they are contradictory; in tracing the body 'totally
> imprinted by history' Foucault is not saying at the same time that that
> same body cannot resist that imprinting, or that that imprinting does not
> give birth to certain specific means of resistence, appropriate to its own
> intervention. All he seems to be suggesting in the second citation is that
> for him, genealogy should take the body, and not 'class', or perhaps even
> 'society', as its point of departure. The first citation is simply an
> articulation of his theory of power, and its distinction from domination;
> that power exists only where a certain space of freedom exists, and that
> any intervention by power produces new possibilities, new openings for
> resistence and counter-strategy. This does not say that such
> counter-forces are inevitably articulated. They are immanent, and follow
> the intervention by power. Genealogy is well suited to facilitating them,
> however, as it focuses on the body, which is - for Foucault and others -
> the point of application for power.
>
Thanks , it helped me a lot. Do yopu believe all parnters will agree
in that description?

DHM

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