One of the professors I most admire in the discipline of anthropology is in Istanbul! I had the pleasure to meet with Prof Michael Fischer and we have even been to the opening ceremony of Santral Istanbul. Former power plant……

(1) Apropos of Carlo’s comment, is there something that this reading misses about what Foucault did after the turn from security to governmentality? The “pause” is part of it. But there is, as Carlo suggests, also a substantial rethinking of the critical project that is simultaneous to this turn. “What is Critique” seems the obvious document of this shift. It clearly turns around liberalism and a liberal conception of freedom — “how not to be governed” — to which Foucault hopes his own critical project will contribute. Suffice it to say that formulations like a critical inquiry into “governing through freedom” do not capture what Foucault is up to.

(2) Rose, Valverde, and O’Malley take up two contemporary projects: that of Latour and that of Beck. They view Latour as a sympathetic fellow traveler and Beck is dressed down for being a conventional sociologist and epochal. There is much to discuss about this, and obviously something to agree with, but, apropos of the earlier exchanges on Latour, I think it is reasonable to say that this alignment of sympathies, in a Foucaultian project, is not exactly self-evident. Leaving aside Beck, one would think that the Latourian failure to relate inquiry to a present problem would place it in a distinctly non-Foucaultian camp. Notably, the anthropology of the contemporary is not mentioned as a legitimate contender in this field. This also deserves reflection.

Here are a few critical comments on issues where I differ with Valverde’s account.

1) Although Valverde rightly underscores that Foucault never seemed much interested in outlining theories of power, the subject, or the state, her own account is curiously systematic. The many inconsistencies, contradictions, shifts of perspective, and radical departures that characterize Foucault’s work both methodologically and substantively are not accorded pride of place in Valverde’s piece. Instead, and a bit paradoxically given Valverde’s intentions, we get an all too coherent summary. Given that both the interviews and the lectures where places where Foucault could put things empirical and conceptual to a test, the form of Foucault’s discours matters just as much as its content. A reading of Foucault’s lectures might perhaps must fruitfully start with the particular form and then relate that form to the content.

2) Valverde argues that her account is primarily focused on Foucault’s “methodological revolution.” However, this methodological revolution is defined by the author almost exclusively in a substantive way. What Valverde means by “methodological revolution” is Foucault’s move away from an analytic framework centered on institutions to a framework that focuses on “practices of governance.” To focus on a new type of object doesn’t necessarily imply that this is done with a new method. What the particular “methodological revolution” is thus remains unclear.

Furthermore, I think one could well argue, that the term “practices of governance” only captures a very particular part of Foucault’s oeuvre. Valverde tends to overemphasize this aspect, excluding everything else that does not fit this particular label. History is being rewritten from a particular point of view.

3) Valverde offers an excellent review of the work that Foucault achieved in the 1970s. This is very helpful and fruitful. However, Foucault moved on, especially to his late work on ethics, that should not be reduced to a description of neoliberal subjectivity. Perhaps this is a general blind spot of scholars of governmentality who seem to have a difficult time to see how volume II and volume III of the History of Sexuality might also have worked for Foucault as a way out of governmentality.

4) After completion of volume I of the History of Sexuality, Foucault entered into a major crisis with no published book for 7 years. The incredible productivity of governmentality scholars stands in marked contrast to this period of sustained pausing that ultimately let to a major re-orientation. Neither the crisis nor the re-orientation is accorded a meaningful place in Valverde’s smooth account. The crisis Foucault experience once volume I of History of Sexuality was published was closely related to the limits of the genealogical approach. The crisis was resolved, in part, by a move beyond Nietzsche.

5) What Valverde doesn’t recognize is that Society Must be Defended gradually became a way for Foucault to historicize (and ultimately get rid of) nothing but Nietzsche’s genealogical method. I don’t think one can say that Foucault’s prime interest in Society Must be Defended was to sketch a genealogy of “European colonialism”. “Empire” seems to be a rather recent fetish. Valverde’s suggestion is a bit anachronistic.

6) Because Society Must be Defended is not a finished book but the result of a lecture, it is possible for today’s reader to follow the movement of Foucault’s thinking. One can see how Foucault’s interest gradually shifted from lecture to lecture. By means of his patient historical work, Foucault detached himself from something he once thought. As he remarked in another piece: «Thought is freedom in relation to what one does, the motion by which one detaches oneself from it, establishes it as an object, and reflects on it as a problem.» This might be a good starting point for a reading of the lectures that are being published now.

6) Two questions suggest themselves but are not really raised by Valverde: What forms of critique are there that differ from genealogy? In other words: How might critical work look like after genealogy? What is the place of the subject in this work? And: To what notion of truth can we still hold on to?

http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/files/RoseValverdeOmalley-Governmentality.pdf

http://www.theoria.ca/theoria/files/Valverde-STP.pdf

Copy-and-paste should work.