allen ch4 power as an immanent affair
TRANSCRIPT
Power as an immanent affair:
Foucault and Deleuze’s topological
detail ch. 4
In Allen, John (2003) Lost Geographies of
Power, Malden, MA: Blackwell.
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Power as an Immanent Affair
POWER AS IMMANENT
• In this conception of power, no force is imposing itself from the outside, but what is considered are ‘the sets of relations and circumstances that one finds oneself within’ (p. 65)
• The focus then is not in ‘who has power?’, but in the techniques of power
• The spatial focus is in institutions (particularly in Foucault), though the question of government of dispersed populations (governmentality) is also considered
• Power is inseparable of its effects; has to do with the effectiveness with which subjects internalise meaning
• This view of power has been put forward by Foucault (1977, 1982, 1984), Rose (1999), Deleuze (1988) and Hardt and Negri (2001)
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Power as an Immanent Affair
FOUCAULT
• Power works thorough a series of techniques in order to limit the
possible ranges of actions of individuals
• ‘Distribution within space’ is one of the four techniques of power
for Foucault. It is his concern when analysing the disciplinary
techniques of institutions such as the prison, mental health hospitals
or the school
• But is the disposition of buildings, etc. in space in itself what directs
behaviour in one way or another? Or is it rather the interpretation of
such a layout made by the subjects?
• The answer is given by Deleuze, in his diagrams of power
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Power as an Immanent Affair
TOWARDS A SPATIALITY OF IMMANENT POWER
• Power can be represented diagrammatically as the interplay of
different forces, techniques, their spatial disposition as well as the
discursive understandings which shape its effects (‘the molecular
soup’ of Deleuze)
• When moving towards the analysis of government of diffuse
populations (from “micro” to “macro”) Foucault transits from ‘a more
constrained, diagrammatic sense of power as domination to a more
open-ended series of provocations and incitements between
individuals’ (p.79)
• Government operates into subjects through the constitution of
various forms of subjectivity. But it is the free consent of the
individual which makes possible the forming of oneself ’s subjectivity
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Power as an Immanent Affair
HARDT AND NEGRI
• ‘In the absence of sanction, we opt to restrain our behaviour
because we may freely choose what is appropriate and what is
inappropriate behaviour’ (p. 80)
• The idea that people are influenced by what they think their ‘truth’ is
as much as by the attempts of others does not reveal however much
about how power bridges the gap between here and there
• This question is addressed somehow by Hardt and Negri’s ‘Empire’
• There are no points of application of power, but rather an extensive
and omnipresent network of actors ‘bundled’ together, all of them
subscribing to liberal democracy and free market. Through acts such
as buying a coffee at Starbucks, our subjectivity is conformed in
accordance with such an ideology
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Power as an Immanent Affair
HARDT AND NEGRI
• Power is exercised through a decentred, deterritorialized apparatus
of rule for which Washington is not the focus
• The operation of world markets constrains subjects and brings the
into line with rule
• It is no longer possible to discern the points of application of power,
as long as a ‘taken-for-grantedness’ is in operation
• The answer is counter-Empire, or forms of associational politics that
confront Empire head on and choose targets such as the IMF in
particular locations (thus giving power a spatial definition)
• But still, contemporary power in the global age is so everywhere
that it seems to lie nowhere
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Power as an Immanent Affair
SUMMING UP
•Foucault and Deleuze provide useful insights such as:
• Power as coextensive with its field of operation, not imposed from the
outside or flowing across space
• Power owing its effects to the interplay of forces constituted in space
and time
• But:
• Loss of spatiality of power when we move from institutions towards
the consideration of how diffuse populations are governed
• Don’t address why certain practices are more effective at a distance,
while others require close proximity
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