I don't know any Foucault's writings on drug use. But, I just wanted to make
preliminary comments on the concept of the state: Foucault or
poststructuralists would not conceptualize the state as a univocal
entity--the state is fragmented, consisting in multiple sites of
contestation. And I think this poststructuralist insight is _empirically_
very useful. While I don't know anything about the Australian state(s) with
regard to drug use, I guess it may well be multi-vocal and multi-layered.
Lynne Haney's 1996 American Sociological Review article, "Homeboys, Babies,
Men in Suits: The State and the Reproduction of Male Dominance," provides a
cogent analysis of the US welfare "state" from a poststructuralist
perspective. (Her analysis is based on ethnography of the two state
institutions in California.) Haney shows how the welfare "state" is in fact
"fragmented and layered, with various sites of control and resistance"
(Haney:773); "homeboys," "babies," and "men in suits" are sites of
multi-layered struggles between welfare clients and state officials. I heard
that Haney made no reference to Foucault in her article because she was
afraid that her article would be rejected by ASR if she mentioned Foucault.
But, if we read her ASR article, we can immediately see that her thesis is
"[power relations] are not univocal; they define innumerable points of
confrontation, focuses of instability, each of which has its own risks of
conflict, of struggles, and of at lear temporary inversion of the power
relations" (Foucault, Discipline and Punish:27).
Anyway, my two cents here: the state's policy regulating drug use would not
be uniformal or univocal.
Hiro
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preliminary comments on the concept of the state: Foucault or
poststructuralists would not conceptualize the state as a univocal
entity--the state is fragmented, consisting in multiple sites of
contestation. And I think this poststructuralist insight is _empirically_
very useful. While I don't know anything about the Australian state(s) with
regard to drug use, I guess it may well be multi-vocal and multi-layered.
Lynne Haney's 1996 American Sociological Review article, "Homeboys, Babies,
Men in Suits: The State and the Reproduction of Male Dominance," provides a
cogent analysis of the US welfare "state" from a poststructuralist
perspective. (Her analysis is based on ethnography of the two state
institutions in California.) Haney shows how the welfare "state" is in fact
"fragmented and layered, with various sites of control and resistance"
(Haney:773); "homeboys," "babies," and "men in suits" are sites of
multi-layered struggles between welfare clients and state officials. I heard
that Haney made no reference to Foucault in her article because she was
afraid that her article would be rejected by ASR if she mentioned Foucault.
But, if we read her ASR article, we can immediately see that her thesis is
"[power relations] are not univocal; they define innumerable points of
confrontation, focuses of instability, each of which has its own risks of
conflict, of struggles, and of at lear temporary inversion of the power
relations" (Foucault, Discipline and Punish:27).
Anyway, my two cents here: the state's policy regulating drug use would not
be uniformal or univocal.
Hiro
_________________________________________________________________
Join the world?s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
http://www.hotmail.com