Critical Thought and Political Agency in Time of War

Jabri, Vivienne

doi:10.1177/0047117805050063

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 3 publications

(10 reference statements)

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“…While Foucault himself said relatively little about the sphere of the international as a distinct sphere, concentrating on operations of power within specifically western societies and their liberal modes of government, his analytics of war and power have enabled crucial insights into our understanding of the workings of power globally. A number of us draw on these analytics to, for example, understand the present practices associated with the so-called ''war against terrorism,'' with international policing regimes against the trafficking of drugs and people, with the representation and treatment of migrants, with recent efforts at so-called state-building and reconstruction, all constituting Foucaultianinspired applications that take Foucault in directions that would perhaps have surprised him, though we can never know this (Dillon and Reid 2001;Bigo 2002;Huysmans 2004;Jabri 2005Jabri , 2006.…”

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confidence: 99%

Michel Foucault's Analytics of War: The Social, the International, and the Racial

Jabri

2007

International Political Sociology

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The absence of the international as a distinct socio‐political sphere in Michel Foucault's work forms a major part of the postcolonial critique of his writings. The absence of the international has a number of consequences for any critical engagement with Foucault in the context of global politics. The significance of these consequences becomes apparent when we consider Foucault's analytics of war and power, situate these in relation to the particularity of the international, consider the very pertinent critiques of Foucault emanating from postcolonial writings, and finally re‐locate Foucault in the international not, as is the predominant approach in International Relations, through the application of Foucaultian concepts, but through Foucault's own political writings on the non‐western arena, specifically his engagement with the Iranian Revolution. While limited in their scope, an evaluation of these writings appears to vindicate postcolonial critiques of Foucault, though with some revealing qualifications.

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Michel Foucault's Analytics of War: The Social, the International, and the Racial

Jabri

2007

International Political Sociology

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“…31 Spivak's question could be rephrased: Can the 'expert' or 'intellectual' subject constituted within and constitutive of relations of power and knowledge have a critical voice? 32 Spivak examines the custom of widow immolation or sati in India, and towards the end of the essay turns to the case of Bhuvaneswari Bhaduri as a different example of female suicide. 33 Bhuvaneswari was found dead in 1926, having hanged herself.…”

Section: Expert Evidence: Dr David Kellymentioning

confidence: 99%

Intellectuals as experts

Edkins¹

2019

Change and the Politics of Certainty

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“…More specifically, it offers a close reading of a short story by Benjamin Percy called "Refresh, Refresh". 14 Feminist critics, including Judith Butler, 15 Vivianne Jabri, 16 Kimberly Hutchings 17 and others, have written extensively about the formation of political and ethical subject positions the removal (real and imaginary) from the scene of violence. For Butler, operative in post-9/11 American war is the "denial of vulnerability", which is being institutionalized in various "fantasies of mastery".…”

Section: War Violence Intersubjectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Can there be Costless War? Violent Exposures and (In)Vulnerable Selves in Benjamin Percy's "Refresh, Refresh"

Zolkos

2011

Critical Horizons

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The technological transformation of the conduct of war, exemplified by the American employment of drones in Afghanistan and in Iraq, calls for a critical reflection about the fantasies that underpin, and are in turn animated by, the robotic revolution of the military. At play here is a fantasy of a "costless war" or a "sterile war", that is such act of military state violence against the other that is inconsequential for the self. In other words, the seductive appeal of the "costless war" fantasy rests on the desire to develop a self that is invulnerable in the face of violence. Importantly, it is a desire explicitly projected towards a particular American future (of an imagined warfare, or of a super-power status), but also one that is connected to a lacking critical reflection about the intersubjective aspects of violence in the debates about America's post-9/11 military involvements. This article reflects critically about the fantasy of the "costless war" and about its underpinning politics of invulnerability from a perhaps unlikely angle of literature. In a close reading of a short story by Benjamin Percy called "Refresh, Refresh" (2008), it explores its narrative insights into how acts of violence, which are undertaken far from home, inevitably return to affect and damage, perhaps beyond repair, the subject at home. Importantly, the return of violence in Percy's story occurs within the domain of the everyday and the mundane, not of the exceptional, and testifies to the despair experienced by young males "abandoned' by their military fathers. My interpretation draws also on theoretical explorations of the connection between violence, intersubjectivity and vulnerability, based on the ideas of Emmanuel Levinas on the subject's ethical captivity by the suffering of the other, and on Judith Butler's recent "uses" of the Levinasian ethical project in her writing about the post-9/11 America.

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Critical Thought and Political Agency in Time of War

Cited by 12 publications

References 3 publications

Michel Foucault's Analytics of War: The Social, the International, and the Racial

Michel Foucault's Analytics of War: The Social, the International, and the Racial

Intellectuals as experts

Can there be Costless War? Violent Exposures and (In)Vulnerable Selves in Benjamin Percy's "Refresh, Refresh"

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