Michel Foucault and the enigmatic origins of bio-politics and governmentality

Abstract

Even a superficial look at the classical ideas and practices of government of populations makes it immediately apparent that there is a peculiarity in Foucault's genealogy of western bio-politics and governmentality. According to Foucault, western governmental rationality can be traced back to the Judeo-Christian tradition in general and to the Christian ideology and practice of the pastorate in particular. In this article, my purpose is to show that Christianity was not the prelude to what Foucault calls governmentality but rather marked a rupture in the development that started in classical Greece and Rome and continued in early modern Europe. With the rise of Christianity, the majority of these classical practices, including negative eugenics and even family policies, either faded into the background or they were rejected outright.

Health and Safety at Work: Analysis from the Brazilian Documentary Film Flesh and Bone

“…This perverse act underlies the discourse (speech acts and social practice) in modernity. “Biopolitics” and “biopower” create these actions in the context of society [40] .…”

Spaces of abandonment: Genealogies, lives and critical horizons

“…In Politics , for example, Aristotle argues for a law that would permit infanticide of any child born with deformities: “As to exposing or rearing the children born, let there be a law that no deformed child shall be reared; but on the ground of number of children, if the regular customs hinder any of those born being exposed, there must be a limit fixed to the procreation of offspring” (Aristotle, 1944: 7.1335b). It is important to note that late Roman sources recognize that often, abandoned children did not die but were rather enslaved or used for prostitution (see also Boswell, 1998; Ojakangas, 2012: 6). This dark economy of abandonment that transforms bodies into commodities, highlights the slippage between expositio —the abandonment of life—and derelictio , a parallel category that designated the abdication of claims over material property (Berger, 1953: 433).…”

“…This The origins of abandonment are often traced to the Roman legal category of expositio, which designated an abdication of a family's responsibility toward a child (Boswell, 1984). In a detailed genealogy of biopolitics, Ojakangas (2012) notes that abandonment through exposure was well established in Greco-Roman policies of eugenics. In Politics, for example, Aristotle argues for a law that would permit infanticide of any child born with deformities: "As to exposing or rearing the children born, let there be a law that no deformed child shall be reared; but on the ground of number of children, if the regular customs hinder any of those born being exposed, there must be a limit fixed to the procreation of offspring" (Aristotle, 1944(Aristotle, , 7.1335b.…”

Negative governance: vulnerability, biopolitics and the origins of government

“…The aim of this discussion, however, is not to review Foucault's well‐rehearsed arguments on the origins of biopower, a topic that has been aptly covered (Campbell ; Elden ; Ojakangas ; Rose ), but to explore how biopower oddly neglects the agency of ‘life itself’; a consequence, I would argue, of Foucault's method. Indeed, as a number of commentators have discussed (see Argyrou ; Cadman ; Campbell ; Fraser ; Patton ; Taylor ), Foucault's work can be accused of succumbing to a certain circularity; that the economies of power he describes (throughout his work) always emerge as circular, self‐reinforcing systems.…”