Hi all,
would it be incorrect to say that the 'negativity' inherent to Foucault's geneological project derives from the process of historicizing and de-mythologicizing social institutions?
Would one be far off the mark in interpreting this process as a way of de-essentializing the object/s of enquiry in such a way as to show that institutional 'forms' are embedded in (historical) systems of knowledge and power? - that it is one and the same force which leads to the generation of languages of expression (discourse) and, on the other hand, determines systems of monitoring and control? - that institutions are invested with interests of both liberation and repression?
Wouldn't describing Foucault's geneological project simply as 'an investigation of the history of a practice' or 'a mere historical description of practices' go directly against the thrust of his project: ie to show that what portrays itself as 'innocent' curiosity is another form of power-as-monitoring, that knowledge cannot be separated from the subject who attains it, that the perspective one has the privilege to gaze from is intrinsically linked to the privilages appropriated by the gaze?
Wouldn't one be assimilating Foucault with all those and all that from which he wanted to distance himself, if one were to neutralise his 'negativity', or pessimism, by calling his analyses 'objective historical investigations/descriptions'?
caldon
would it be incorrect to say that the 'negativity' inherent to Foucault's geneological project derives from the process of historicizing and de-mythologicizing social institutions?
Would one be far off the mark in interpreting this process as a way of de-essentializing the object/s of enquiry in such a way as to show that institutional 'forms' are embedded in (historical) systems of knowledge and power? - that it is one and the same force which leads to the generation of languages of expression (discourse) and, on the other hand, determines systems of monitoring and control? - that institutions are invested with interests of both liberation and repression?
Wouldn't describing Foucault's geneological project simply as 'an investigation of the history of a practice' or 'a mere historical description of practices' go directly against the thrust of his project: ie to show that what portrays itself as 'innocent' curiosity is another form of power-as-monitoring, that knowledge cannot be separated from the subject who attains it, that the perspective one has the privilege to gaze from is intrinsically linked to the privilages appropriated by the gaze?
Wouldn't one be assimilating Foucault with all those and all that from which he wanted to distance himself, if one were to neutralise his 'negativity', or pessimism, by calling his analyses 'objective historical investigations/descriptions'?
caldon