Counter-conducts in South Africa: Power, Government and Dissent at the World Summit

Abstract

Carl Death,?Counter-conducts in South Africa: Power, Government and Dissent at the World Summit?, Globalizations, 8, 4, (2011), pp. 425-438. specialissue: Disciplining DissentThis article introduces Michel Foucault's concept of ?counter-conducts???struggles against the processes implemented for conducting others??in order to rethink the relationship between power and dissent. It proposes an ?analytics of protest? to address forms of resistance, through which this article focuses on the mentalities, practices, and subjectivities produced at protests in South Africa at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. These protests were some of the largest public expressions of dissent since the end of apartheid, yet the article illuminates the ways in which power and resistance are mutually reliant and co-constitutive. These summit counter-conducts both contested and reinforced existing power relations, and were disciplined by discourses of civility/violence, partnership/disruption, and local/foreign from state authorities and the media. They were also disciplined by internal discourses of liberal dissent and radical protest from within the movements themselves. The article concludes that, from a Foucauldian perspective on counter-conducts, forms of dissent that are strategic, reversible, and flexible are preferable to those that are sedimented and entrenched.Peer reviewe

EU security sector reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Reform or resist?

“…95-96). In this vein, power and resistance should not be considered as two opposing poles, as cooptation or confrontation, but as mutually constitutive (Death, 2010(Death, , 2011. Therefore, Foucault (2007b) prefers the term "counter-conduct," meaning the "struggle against the processes implemented for conducting others" (p. 201).…”

“…For instance, in Death's (2011) account of protests in South Africa, he argues that some of these protesters' discourses and practices worked to reinforce the view that state representatives were the "proper target and focus of progressive politics" (p. 431), reinforcing the status quo. Similar analyses have been developed in the literature on the role of the EU in its neighborhood.…”

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“…See Death (2011), who regards the protests against the World Summit in South Africa as counter-conduct. 2.…”

“…This is because Foucault's counter-conduct is mainly about individuals and populations (human collectivities). Analysts such as Death (2011), Cadman (2010 and Odysseos (2011) have all enquired into the relationship between governments and the people(s). However, the models that they employ to evaluate empirical examples cannot be applied to explain the counter-conduct of target governments in the case of the EU's governmentality.…”

“…Different analysts take different instances as counterconduct. In the literature, anything from suicide (Foucault as interpreted by Davidson 2011, p. 38) to public protests (Death 2011) has been given as an example of counter-conduct. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to define an ideal case in this regard.…”