Colonial Subjectification: Foucault, Christianity and Governmentality

Abstract

Foucault’s concept of pastoral power is envisioned as a technique of power developed from the medieval period and carried through into modern political rationalities. As such, it is an old power technique – which originated in Christian institutions – in a new political shape, which he coined governmentality. This article uses Foucault’s genealogy of pastoral power and governmentality to discuss the intersection of domination and technology of self in the Greenlandic colonial context and to bring out the central role of religion in Foucault’s conceptualisation of governmentality.

Interpretation of Power: A Comparison Between Christian-based West and Confucius-based East

“…Marxists argue that the ruling class has the power to prioritize their interests before others in society [8]. By comparing the formation of power relations to the construction of the legal system, they argue that ownership relations are all attributed to the interests of the economically dominant ruling class, which are ultimately based on a single economic relation and can be deduced from it as well [6]. Therefore, Foucault believes that the Marxist view of power contains economic functionalism, and the main function of power is to maintain the relations of production and to regenerate the rule of class [19].…”

“…Although monarch no longer has importance in real politics, it is still preserved in political theory. On the other hand, it is also far-fetched to describe power in economic terms such as transaction, contract, and transfer [6]. The Marxist power analysis theory only ascribes power to the economy and oversimplifies and deals with the complex power relations in a macroscopic way.…”

“…However, the post-modernist multicultural norm stemmed from Christian traditions [5]. Even though there are critiques against Christianity from Enlightenment philosophers like Marx, Nietzsche, to modern existentialists like Camus and Sartre, such criticisms show how deeply Europe -or the West -has deep roots in Christianity [6]. Moreover, with Enlightenment, Christian traditions have been transformed into political ideologies.…”

Introduction: Anthropology, Collecting and Colonial Governmentalities

“…The literature bringing a Foucaultian analytics of government to colonial situations is now rich and well advanced (Scott 1995;Stolar 1995;Bennett 2004;White 2005;Legg 2007;Petterson 2012). A significant contribution has been made by investigations of the role of anthropology in colonial government (Thomas 1994;Pels 1997;Pels and Salemink 1999).…”

Museum, Field, Colony: collecting, displaying and governing people and things

“…The rationale for this selection of papers can be elaborated through a brief review of this literature, which we believe has much to offer museum studies. The body of writing applying a Foucaultian analytics of government to colonial situations is now a rich and well-advanced one (Scott 1995;Stoler 1995;Bennett 2004;Legg 2007;Petterson 2012). A significant contribution to this literature has been investigations of the role of anthropology in colonial government (Thomas 1994;Pels 1997;Pels and Salemink 1999) and in colonial museums (Barringer and Flynn 1998;Henare 2005;MacKenzie 2009).…”