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Gated communities, heterotopia and a 'rights' of privilege : a 'heterotopology' of the South African security-park ' (in Hetherington's (1997) Keywords: heterotopia, heterotopology, gated community, security-park, discourse, social power, historical structures of privilege. Preamble.This paper is divided into three sections. The first introduces the notion of the 'gated community', of which we consider the South African 'security-park' to be a paradigmatic example. Tying a generic level of discussion (by making references to more global 'gating' phenomena), to the specifics of the South African situation (references in particular to Dainfern Estate -probably the most auspicious example of a South African securitypark), we hope both to critically characterize the security-park, and to inform the analysis to follow. The second section provides what the authors hope will be a qualified, yet informative explication (or even expansion) of Foucault's theoretical concept of the heterotopia. The third part of the paper essentially joins the two foregoing sections by advancing an analysis of Dainfern Estate as heterotopia.
, £47.50.Power and resistance are core concerns for social and community psychology, as is the need for greater critical reflexivity by psychological practitioners and researchers. Foucault is widely regarded as one of the 20th century's leading social theorists in both these areas. Despite this, 20 years after his death his work is surprisingly neglected by many critical psychologists-probably because his writings are so dense, contradictory and hard to follow. Within this context, Hook's brilliant, wide-ranging and provocative text provides a welcome and timely 'users' guide' to Foucauldian theory and methods.At the same time as grappling with the complexity of Foucault's ideas and methods, Hook's pathbreaking monograph sets up the basis of further dialogues between Foucault and an array of critical thinkers-most notably Vygotsky and Fanon. In the process he develops an enthralling and complex debate about the possibilities of a truly critical psychology, one not limited to the critique of the Psycomplex, but aware also of the potential of psychological concepts in political analyses. The critical psychology which emerges is hence less embroiled in wider social projects of 'discipline and punishment'. It takes account of both the social and 'the psychic life of power', attempting to generate innovative intersections between Foucauldian and a variety of more radical psychological (psychoanalytic, postcolonial, antiracist) projects of critique.Drawing both on Foucault's standard works, and a series of lesser known writings, the first goal of the book is to use Foucault's genealogical writings as a way of critically reconceptualising psychology as a form of power-knowledge that is part and parcel of the disciplinary and corrective practices of modern relations of control. Notions such as 'the individual' and 'subjectivity' are understood as the by-products of particular forms of disciplinary power, rather than as natural and given. An interesting illustration of these ideas is provided in a series of empirical examples derived from Hook's study of the 'microanalytics of power' in the psychotherapeutic encounter. In developing this general critique, Hook emphasises the importance of the historical and political dimensions of Foucauldian work, explaining and illustrating why an analysis of power is a key factor in understanding any human or social phenomenon.The second goal of the book is to use Foucault's thinking as a way of grounding a series of radical research methods. Hook explores Foucault's potential methodological contribution to the study of 'how power works', providing a clear account of these contributions without any loss of philosophical complexity. He pays particular attention to four analytical frameworks derived from his careful reading of Foucault's texts. Each of these approaches provides a different set of methodological injunctions for investigating unequal power relations.As Hook reminds his readers, Foucault's goal was not to provide a grand theory of power. Rather he sought to provide differe...
Discourse analysis has come to represent something of a `growth industry' in both research and critical psychology. Despite the apparent indebtedness of many such methods of discourse analysis to Foucault, there exists no strictly Foucauldian method of analysing discourse. Through a close reading of Foucault's `The Order of Discourse' (1981a), this paper re-characterizes the concept of discourse from a firmly Foucauldian perspective. Whilst not arguing against discourse analysis per se, the author indirectly takes issue with erroneous applications of Foucault's conceptualization by clarifying his perspective on what discourse is, and on what `discursive analysis' should entail. This critical presentation of the Foucauldian notion of the discursive will be contrasted with two prominent approaches to discourse analysis in psychology, namely those of Parker (1992) and Potter and Wetherell (1987). Key issues in this regard revolve around the themes of knowledge, materiality and history. By outlining the core components of what Foucault (1981a) terms `the order of discourse', and through the exposition of a four-step `method' of discursive critique, the author propounds an image of what a Foucauldian discursive analytic method may have looked like, should it have ever existed, before specifying exactly why one never did.
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