By assembling authors with a wide range of different disciplinary backgrounds, from philosophy, literature, political science, sociology to medical anthropology ...

"Critically engaging with some limitations of new materialist scholarship, Lemke draws on Foucault's concept of a "government of things" to propose a relational understanding of political ontologies"--.

Der Begriff der Regierung, den Foucault vor allem in den weitgehend unveroffentlichten Vorlesungen der Jahre 1978 und 1979 am College de France entwickelt hat, liefert den Schlussel zum Verstandnis seines Spatwerks. NIcht mehr Recht und Krieg, sondern Fuhrung und Hegemonie bilden die zentralen Bezugspunkte. FOucault vertritt die These, daSS die "Genealogie des modernen Staates" und die "Genealogie des modernen Subjekts" zusammengehoren. FOucaults Analyse der modernen Gouvernementmentalitat darf gerade heute Aktualitat beanspruchen. ANhand des liberalen Denkens zeigt er, wie die Selbstregulationsfahigkeit von (...) Individuen und Gruppen mit okonomischer Profitmaximierung und gesellschaftspolitischen Zielen verknupft werden. DAmit kann er die Beziehungen zwischen "Bio-Politik" und Rassismus, Freiheit und Sicherheit, dem Abbau sozialstaatlicher Leistungen und dem zunehmenden Appell an "Eigenverantwortung" und "Selbstsorge" aufzeigen. Der Neoliberalismus ist demnach eine Rationalitat, die nicht nur eine neue Form des Sozialen "erfindet", sondern auch eine neue Subjektivitat. IN ihr sind wirtschaftlicher Wohlstand und personliches Wohlsein miteinander gekoppelt, wobei nicht nur der individuelle Korper, sondern auch der Staat als politischer Korper "schlank" und "fit" sein muSS. THomas Lemkes Studie, die auf umfangreichen Recherchen und bislang unbekanntem Archivmaterial basiert, betritt Neuland in der Foucault-Rezeption. DAruber hinaus enthalt sie die umfassendste Bibliographie der politisch und sozialwissenschaftlich relevanten Arbeiten Foucaults und eine Vielzahl von deutschen Erstubersetzungen seiner Texte. SIe zeigt aber auch, wie von SchulerInnen und KollegInnen Foucaults die "Regierungs"-.PErspektive aufgenommen wurde und sich in Forschungsarbeiten konkretisieren. SIe bietet nicht nur eine Interpretation, sondern wird selbst zum Werkzeug fur eine Kritik der politischen Vernunft. (shrink)

The article explores the perspectives of Foucault’s notion of government by linking it to the debate on the ‘new materialism’. Discussing Karen Barad’s critical reading of Foucault’s work on the body and power, it points to the idea of a ‘government of things’, which Foucault only briefly outlines in his lectures on governmentality. By stressing the ‘intrication of men and things’, this theoretical project makes it possible to arrive at a relational account of agency and ontology, going beyond the anthropocentric (...) limitations of Foucault’s work. This perspective also suggests an altered understanding of biopolitics. While Foucault’s earlier concept of biopolitics was limited to physical and biological existence, the idea of a ‘government of things’ takes into account the interrelatedness and entanglements of men and things, the natural and the artificial, the physical and the moral. Finally, the conceptual proposal of a ‘government of things’ helps to clarify theoretical ambiguities and unresolved tensions in new materialist scholarship and allows for a more materialist account of politics. (shrink)

Tracking the development of Foucault's key concepts Lemke offers the most comprehensive and systematic account of Michel Foucault's work on power and government from 1970 until his death in 1984. He convincingly argues, using material that has only partly been translated into English, that Foucault's concern with ethics and forms of subjectivation is always already integrated into his political concerns and his analytics of power. The book also shows how the concept of government was taken up in different lines of (...) research in France before it gave rise to "governmentality studies" in the Anglophone world. A Critique of Political Reason provides a clear and well-structured exposition that is theoretically challenging but also accessible for a wider audience. Thus, the book can beread both as an original examination of Foucault's concept of government and as a general introduction to his "genealogy of power". (shrink)

It is widely known that by the end of the 1970s, Foucault had begun to refer to ‘experience’ to account for his intellectual trajectory and to redirect the work on The History of Sexuality. However, the interest in experience also decisively shaped Foucault’s analysis of the ‘critical attitude’ that he explicitly started to address at about the same time. The article argues that Foucault’s notion of critique is informed by a specific reading and understanding of ‘experience’. Experience is conceived of (...) as dominant structure and transformative force, as existing background of practices and transcending event, as the object of theoretical inquiry and the objective of moving beyond historical limits. Foucault defines experience as a dynamic interplay between games of truth, forms of power and relations to the self. Accordingly, the Foucauldian account of critique is characterized by three aspects: the activity of problematization, the art of voluntary insubordination, and the audacity to expose one’s own status as a subject. While the first section of the article briefly reconstructs the trajectory of ‘experience’ in Foucault’s work from the 1960s to the 1980s, the main part discusses the dimensions and implications of this ‘experimental’ critique. (shrink)

This article discusses the basic arguments and important achievements of Jane Bennett’s vital materialism, as well as some problems and limitations of this theoretical perspective. It first analyzes the ontological underpinnings of Bennett’s materialist account and presents two examples she uses to illustrate the notion of a ‘force of things’. The paper then addresses central conceptual and analytic problems of Bennett’s account. The notion of an all-encompassing ‘vitality of matter’ is insufficient to explain the relationality of matter; it is also (...) empirically limited and provides only a selective account of agency. These shortcomings and limitations affect the political perspectives of Bennett’s version of vital materialism. I conclude that there is a tendency in her work to displace political considerations by invoking new ethical responsibilities and sensibilities. Being attentive to the vitality of things translates into a systematic blindness concerning the inequalities, asymmetries and hierarchies enacted in vital materializations. (shrink)

« Marx without Quotation-Marks » : Foucault, Governability, and the Critique of Neoliberalism. The « micro-physics of power » that Foucault proposed in the beginning of the 1970s for the analysis of power relations encountered two serious theoretical problems. It did not sufficiently explain processes of subjectivation and lacked an adequate concept of the state. The problematics of government that Foucault finally developed provides a solution to these problems. It offers a new theoretical perspective on power since it underlines that (...) power is foremost about guidance and conduct. Foucault’s work on governmentality parallels very similar endeavours and recent developments in Marxist theory and is also of great critical interest to analyse contemporary neoliberal forms of government. (shrink)

In the recent past a number of empirical studies provided evidence that increasing genetic knowledge leads to new forms of exclusion, disadvantage and stigmatisation. As a consequence, many states have inaugurated special legislation to fight "genetic discrimination".This article focuses on some theoretical, normative and practical problems in the scientific and political debate on genetic discrimination. It puts forward the thesis that the existing antidiscrimination approach is based on the implicit idea that genes are the essence of (human) life. Since genes (...) are held responsible for individual development and personal identity, genetic discrimination is granted a privileged legal status in comparison to other forms of discrimination. As a result the analytical and political concentration on processes of genetic discrimination may reinforce the "geneticization" of body, illness and deviance. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an intense debate about the concept of “biological” or “genetic citizenship.” The growing literature on this topic mostly refers to the importance of patients’ associations, disease advocacy organizations, and self-help groups that are giving rise to new forms of subjectivation and collective action. The focus is on the extension of rights, the emergence of new possibilities of participation, and the choice-enhancing options of the new genetics. However, this perspective tends to neglect the potential for (...) exclusion and restriction of citizenship rights based on biological traits. We aim to broaden and complement the existing theoretical discussion on biological citizenship, which so far has concentrated on the medical sphere, by investigating a new empirical field. The article analyzes the use of DNA analysis for family reunification and shows that biological criteria still play an important role in decision making on citizenship rights in nation-states. Presenting Germany as an exemplary case, we argue that the use of parental testing endorses a biological concept of the family that is mobilized to diminish citizenship rights. The argument is based on documentary analysis and on interviews with representatives of nongovernmental organizations and immigration authorities, lawyers, geneticists, and applicants for family reunification. (shrink)

Few thinkers have left such an influence across such a diverse range of studies as Michel Foucault has. This book pays homage to that diversity by presenting a multidisciplinary series of analyses dedicated to the question of power today.

Over the past 20 years, a series of empirical studies in different countries have shown that the increase in genetic knowledge is leading to new forms of exclusion, disadvantaging and stigmatisation. The term "genetic discrimination" has been coined to refer to a (negative) differential treatment of an individual on the basis of what is known or assumed about his or her genetic makeup. Reported incidents2 include difficulties in finding or retaining employment, problems with insurance policies and difficulties with adoption.So far, (...) no empirical data on genetic discrimination in Germany are available. For this reason it remains unclear how often people in Germany are discriminated against because of their genetic characteristics. Aside from individual cases do forms of systematic genetic discrimination exist? If so, in which institutions and social arenas do they appear? These questions cannot be answered at present even cursorily, since no specialised studies or basic surveys have been carried out. Even the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) accompanying the Human Genome Project3 and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research does not include a single investigation of this. (shrink)

The purpose of the research was to study Finnish people's attitudes towards biomedical research and whether the research sponsor makes a difference to those attitudes. A survey questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 25-64 years old. Respondents had a positive attitude towards biomedical research and there were only small variations by population group. When asked whether one's own clinical blood samples could be used in scientific biomedical research, 84 per cent of the respondents would allow it. The most (...) important reasons for giving routinely collected samples to a biobank were altruistic. Attitudes were strongly dependent on the sponsor of the research. Domestic research was looked at more positively than international research. Whether research was made by a public or private actor had less impact. The results suggest that people want to be research participants to help such research of their own free will, and to choose whom they help. This has an impact on the way participants are informed, on the criteria used by ethics committees and other research regulators, and also on transparency and access to research results. (shrink)

The article focuses on the ability of some animals and plants to respond to changing environmental conditions by temporarily suspending metabolic processes. In contemporary biology, this state between life and death is commonly labelled ‘cryptobiosis’, combining the Greek kryptos (hidden, concealed, secret) with biōsis (mode of life). I argue that the notion of ‘cryptobiosis’ does not account sufficiently for the processual and relational dimensions of ametabolic life. The article advances a related but different concept, which better addresses this liminal state (...) of biological organisation: s uspended life. While cryptobiosis still nurtures the imaginary of some latent life, suspended life stresses the liminality of the neither-nor life and death. The notion also grasps the dynamic and ongoing transfer between the biological and the technological. While the debate on cryptobiosis has so far remained confined to the description of natural processes, suspended life (or limbiosis) promises to account for contemporary technological practices of cryopreservation. (shrink)