Genealogy as examplary critique: reflections on Foucault and the imagination of the political

Owen, David

doi:10.1080/03085149500000021

Cited by 32 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…What I have produced is a critique by example rather than a foundational critique and prescription often pursued in, for example, critical theory. Critique by example is normative in the sense that it does not prescribe any solution to the result it presents (Owen 1995).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing nursing through reflection: a discourse analysis of reflective practices

Fejes

2008

Journal of Advanced Nursing

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Aim. This paper is a report of a study analysing reflection as discourse and a technology of confession which produces a certain desirable subjectivity within nursing practice. Background. Reflection and reflective practice are common themes in nursing practices and in the literature on nursing. These practices are often construed as positive and empowering, and more critical analyses of them are needed. Method. A Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis based on the concepts of governmentality and technologies of the self was conducted. Interview transcripts from 42 managers, supervisors, teachers and participants in an in-service programme to prepare health care assistants to become Licensed Practice Nurses in the elder care sector were analysed. Findings. Reflection as confession operates as a governing technology within the nursing practice analysed. Programme participants are encouraged to reflect and scrutinize themselves about their work as a way to improve their competencies and practice. Through appraisals, they are invited to reflect about themselves as way to achieve their desires. In this way, active, responsible, problem-solving, self-governing practitioners are constructed. Conclusion. Through a Foucauldian reading of reflective practices it is possible to illustrate that reflection is not a neutral or apolitical practice. Instead, it is a governing practice that does something, in discursive terms, to nursing subjectivity -something that can create a space for reflection about what reflection discursively does to subjectivity. Summary statement What is already know about this topic• Reflection and reflective practices are common themes in nursing practices • Literature on reflection and reflective practice in nursing often construe such practices as positive and empowering • Some literature focuses on issues of power in relation to reflection and nursing, and the work of Foucault has been introduced more extensively during the last decade in research on nursing What this paper adds• Reflection operates as a governing technology that shapes an active, responsible, problem-solving, self-governing nursing practitioner. • Reflection on the individual level is constructed as something desirable that makes it possible to work upon oneself to become a desirable nursing practitioner.• Reflection is not a neutral or apolitical practice, but is a governing practice that acts, in discursive terms, to produce a desirable nursing subjectivity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing nursing through reflection: a discourse analysis of reflective practices

Fejes

2008

Journal of Advanced Nursing

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“…As Rose, O’Malley and Valverde (2006 : 89) argue, this was the period in which the dominant ‘analytical framework of governmentality…assumed the form’ that ‘it takes today’. Our claim is that the implicit politics we identify with this ‘analytical framework’ still dominates the field today: according to David Owen (1995 : 501), the ‘architectonic practical interest of genealogy’ is autonomy. Thomas Osborne (1999 : 47) speaks of ‘self-creation’, while Nikolas Rose, following his analysis of the ‘death of the social’ and apparent denial therefore of any politics that might be built from this (now absent) well-spring ( Rose, 1996 ), suggests that in this post-social age ‘each person’s life should be its own telos’.…”

Section: On ‘Not Being Governed So Much’mentioning

confidence: 99%

The domestication of Foucault

Allen

Goddard

2014

History of the Human Sciences

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Though Foucault was intrigued by the possibilities of radical social transformation, he resolutely resisted the idea that such transformation could escape the effects of power and expressed caution when it came to the question of revolution. In this article we argue that in one particularly influential line of development of Foucault’s work his exemplary caution has been exaggerated in a way that weakens the political aspirations of post-Foucaldian scholarship. The site of this reduction is a complex debate over the role of normativity in Foucaldian research, where it has been claimed that Foucault’s genealogical approach is unable to answer the question ‘Why fight?’ The terms of this debate (on the neo-Foucaldian side) are limited by a dominant though selective interpretation of Foucault’s analytics of power, where power is understood primarily in terms of government, rather than struggle. In response we suggest that if we reconfigure power-as-government to power-as-war, this adjusts the central concern. ‘Why fight?’ becomes replaced by the more immediate question, ‘How fight?’ Without denying the obvious benefits of cautious scholarly work, we argue that a reconfiguration of Foucault’s analytics of power might help Foucaldian research to transcend the self-imposed ethic of political quietism that currently dominates the field.

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“…(5) Legislative vs. exemplary critique: Owen (1995). Modernist critical histories are designated as forms of ''legislative'' critique because the intellectual work dictates the possibilities for agency, autonomy, and transformation.…”

Section: Genealogy As Exemplary Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Modernist critical histories are designated as forms of ''legislative'' critique because the intellectual work dictates the possibilities for agency, autonomy, and transformation. Owen's (1995) contrastive notion of ''exemplary'' critique helps to explain why the absence of legislated agency is not the same as the absence of agency: Genealogy cannot legislate autonomy for us, it recognizes no grounds on which such an act of legislation could be secured, but it can (and does) exemplify its commitment to the value of autonomy in the form of its reflection on our present (Owen, 1995, p. 492).…”

Section: Genealogy As Exemplary Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This compilation fleshed out the modern/postmodern debate from multiple perspectives including systems theory, pragmatism, and feminism. I also draw from contemporary US social theory (Connolly, 1985;Dean, 1994;Owen, 1995) to argue that Foucault's genealogical approach presents us with possibilities for praxis and agency 1 that are not available in a modernist discourse. In the field of education, the literature on ''new cultural history'' has contributed significantly to this debate (see, e.g., Popkewitz et al, 2001;DePaepe and Simon, 1996).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Praxis and Agency in Foucault’s Historiography

Fendler

2004

Stud Philos Educ

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This paper examines the consequences for agency that Foucault's historiographical approach constructs. The analysis begins by explaining the difference between ''legislative history'' and ''exemplary history,'' drawing parallels to similar theoretical distinctions offered in the works of Max Weber, J.L. Austin, and Zygmunt Bauman. The analysis continues by reading Habermas's critique of Foucault through the tropological lenses suggested by White [Metahistory. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973]; it argues that Habermas's critique misrecognizes the tropes of Foucaultian genealogy. The paper draws implications for education by articulating possibilities for praxis and agency in terms of pedagogy specifically related to the distinction between didactics and modeling. The paper concludes by suggesting that genealogy does not ''play by Hegel's rules,'' but rather exemplifies agency in ways that are not recognizable from a modernist perspective.

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Genealogy as examplary critique: reflections on Foucault and the imagination of the political

Cited by 32 publications

References 4 publications

Governing nursing through reflection: a discourse analysis of reflective practices

Governing nursing through reflection: a discourse analysis of reflective practices

The domestication of Foucault

Praxis and Agency in Foucault’s Historiography

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