hi list,
i've a question relating to my (sociology honours) work and some comments on
the individual/subject discussion.
i'm doing a project on individuals' "name collections" - pre-birth and baby
names but also the lifetime accumulation of given names, surnames, nicknames,
second language names, titles, pseudonyms, intimate names, etc - which i'm
planning to consider in the space provided between Foucault's writings on the
self (both against the idea of the unified self and his more positive work on
practices of the self) and governmentality.
i intend to use interviews to attempt to collect (probably incomplete) accounts
of name collections/naming/associated practices and am planning to include some
discussion of the interview as research technology (the kinds of things i'm
thinking about for now include possible connections between the interview as
research tool and as media tool, notions of expertise and memory
required/implied/produced by interview research, etc).
can anyone point me in the direction of any Foucaultian work that discusses the
technology of the interview?
(all I've seen is brief reference to use of the interview as a regulatory
mechanism in workplace management, in Miller and Rose's article, "Governing
economic life").
now, some brief thoughts on questions of the individual/subject raised by Sean
(and Ted).
i'm still a long way from coming to grips with (or even reading) much of
Foucault's work, but my understanding is that Foucault's treatment of the
individual/subject as inseparable from, not transcendent to, power/discourse
does not render it non-existent. Ted, when you say that individual and subject
are "social meanings" are you saying that different (including liberal) theories
of the individual/subject (attempt to) constitute it in different ways,
including as prediscursive? (hence Foucault's refusal to begin with an a priori
theory of the subject - as in "the ethic of care for the self as a practice of
freedom" (ecspf)). can 'social meanings' be responsible for their own creation?
i have also wondered about Foucault's idea of the relationship between the
individual/self and the subject. it seems to me that he does not uniformly
equate the two, but that different subjects emerge in individuals' relations
with their selves and others, eg
'government of individualization', a form of power which 'applies itself to
immediate everyday life' and 'categorizes the individual, marks him (sic) by his
own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on
him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him. It is a
form of power which makes individuals subjects' (Foucault 1983, 212 from 'The
subject and power')
'You do not have towards yourself the same kind of relationships when you
constitute yourself as a political subject who goes and votes or speaks up in a
meeting, and when you try to fulfill your desires in a sexual relationship.
There are no doubt some relationships and some interferences between these
different kinds of subjects but we are not in the presence of the same kind of
subject. In each case, we play, we establish with one's self some different
form of relationship.' (Foucault 1994, 10 from ecspf)
enough from me for now,
seeya, Kirsten
harley.kirsten@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
i've a question relating to my (sociology honours) work and some comments on
the individual/subject discussion.
i'm doing a project on individuals' "name collections" - pre-birth and baby
names but also the lifetime accumulation of given names, surnames, nicknames,
second language names, titles, pseudonyms, intimate names, etc - which i'm
planning to consider in the space provided between Foucault's writings on the
self (both against the idea of the unified self and his more positive work on
practices of the self) and governmentality.
i intend to use interviews to attempt to collect (probably incomplete) accounts
of name collections/naming/associated practices and am planning to include some
discussion of the interview as research technology (the kinds of things i'm
thinking about for now include possible connections between the interview as
research tool and as media tool, notions of expertise and memory
required/implied/produced by interview research, etc).
can anyone point me in the direction of any Foucaultian work that discusses the
technology of the interview?
(all I've seen is brief reference to use of the interview as a regulatory
mechanism in workplace management, in Miller and Rose's article, "Governing
economic life").
now, some brief thoughts on questions of the individual/subject raised by Sean
(and Ted).
i'm still a long way from coming to grips with (or even reading) much of
Foucault's work, but my understanding is that Foucault's treatment of the
individual/subject as inseparable from, not transcendent to, power/discourse
does not render it non-existent. Ted, when you say that individual and subject
are "social meanings" are you saying that different (including liberal) theories
of the individual/subject (attempt to) constitute it in different ways,
including as prediscursive? (hence Foucault's refusal to begin with an a priori
theory of the subject - as in "the ethic of care for the self as a practice of
freedom" (ecspf)). can 'social meanings' be responsible for their own creation?
i have also wondered about Foucault's idea of the relationship between the
individual/self and the subject. it seems to me that he does not uniformly
equate the two, but that different subjects emerge in individuals' relations
with their selves and others, eg
'government of individualization', a form of power which 'applies itself to
immediate everyday life' and 'categorizes the individual, marks him (sic) by his
own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on
him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him. It is a
form of power which makes individuals subjects' (Foucault 1983, 212 from 'The
subject and power')
'You do not have towards yourself the same kind of relationships when you
constitute yourself as a political subject who goes and votes or speaks up in a
meeting, and when you try to fulfill your desires in a sexual relationship.
There are no doubt some relationships and some interferences between these
different kinds of subjects but we are not in the presence of the same kind of
subject. In each case, we play, we establish with one's self some different
form of relationship.' (Foucault 1994, 10 from ecspf)
enough from me for now,
seeya, Kirsten
harley.kirsten@xxxxxxxxxxxxx