Re: Foucault and children

>Can anyone provide references on the topic of Foucault and children, the
>creation of discourse such that children are marginalized, regulated,
>oppressed, and surveilled?

My two cents: Ultimately I don't know what Foucault "really" said, but I
would not say discourses (on sexuality) "marginalize" children if I adopt
the Foucauldian point of view. Rather, bodies of children are relentlessly
thematized, regulated, and disciplined because bodies of children are sites
in which power relations are created, reproduced, subverted and transformed.

Ann Stoler wrote an essay in which she illustrated how (sexuality of) the
Dutch colonizers' children were the focus of the reproduction of power
relations between the Dutch colonizers and the Javanese colonized.
("Domestic Subversions and Children's Sexuality" in Race and the Education
of Desire. Foucault's History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things.
Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1995.) And I am personally
interested in, both developmentally and sociologically, how "race" and
"gender" begin to matter to children within the context of the US. (I heard
that colors of skins do not influence pre-school children in terms of their
interactions with people, albeit the children indeed perceive different
colors of skins; however, for some reason, "race" signified by skin colors
begins to matter to elementary-school children in terms of their friendship
formation.) I suppose it is crucial to study children because they are the
ones on which the reproduction/transformation of the current racial and
gender (and other kinds of) inequality or domination depends.

Hiro

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx


Partial thread listing: