readings greetings

For the next week, or so, we shall read lecture one of Security, Territory, Population. Feel free to use the blog to push and probe Foucault, to publish your reactions, agreements, and complaints, or to write whatever you wish.

Pre-colonial Biopower

Ortho wrote:

Biopower, on the other hand, focused on individuals as a people, as a species; as a mass to regulate, characterize, mobilize, and forecast. Where disciplinary power focused on particular individuals, biopower focused upon a generalized and generalizable individual who could be serialized (placed in a repeatable and interchangeable sequence).

This description seems to apply to the Zulu kingdom during Shaka's reign from 1818 to 1828. As Shaka's kingdom expanded, men and women were given precisely-defined roles based on their age. From the age of 20 to 40, men were required to fight in regiments; they were forbidden to marry or engage in sexual relations. Women from the age of 20 to 40 were required to work as agricultural producers in order to feed the fighting regiments. Anyone who disobeyed these demands was liable to be killed; their generalization made their replacement quite easy. After the age of 40, men and women were allowed to marry and live together.

Some scholars suggest that Shaka felt his kingdom was already overpopulated and so he divided men and women up in this way in order to prevent the creation of more subjects. Others suggest that Shaka believed sexual activity sapped the strength of his fighters. As Mickey says in Rocky, "Women weaken legs." No one knows for sure. But regardless of the motivation, Shaka introduced precise technologies for controlling the population in these ways, particularly through the use of physical space--the construction and placement of barracks and homesteads, for instance. Also the creation of a bureaucracy charged with upholding and enforcing the regulations.

I think what we see in the case of the Zulu kingdom is the development of new technologies and classificatory systems in order to subordinate the interests of individuals to the needs of the state and to control the population. That sounds like bio-power to me. Did it lead to new methods of knowledge production? How could it not have?

Biopower and Western Medicine

Since I am learning blog protocol, I wanted to respond to Ortho's post on this page. However, it is posted under "comments." Thus, if you wish to read my thoughts on the issue, especially within the context of biopower and Western medicine in Africa, read my comment.

biopower as metaphor for knowledge production

In the first few pages of lecture eleven, Foucault differentiates biopower from disciplinary power (242-243, 245-247). He suggests that biopower emerged in the mid-eighteenth century. It didn't replace disciplinary power, but grafted onto disciplinary power, or incorporated portions of disciplinary power. Disciplinary power focused on people as individuals; as individuals to train, punish, use, and surveil. Biopower, on the other hand, focused on individuals as a people, as a species; as a mass to regulate, characterize, mobilize, and forecast. Where disciplinary power focused on particular individuals, biopower focused upon a generalized and generalizable individual who could be serialized (placed in a repeatable and interchangeable sequence). I wonder if we can read the changes in the technologies of power analogously, as changes in the processes of knowing, or, in other words, in the processes of knowledge production.

An example of biopower epistemology may be the various mechanisms of governmentality deployed by imperialists during nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonial encounters in Africa. For example, the creation of censuses to know the colonial population; health programs to regulate the population as a mass; prenatal programs to influence birth rates; maps to know the land; the creation of museums and archives to know and preserve the "African" past (For examples in colonial Asia, see Anderson's Imagined Communities, chapter 10). Not only are these mechanisms concerned with the colonial population as a mass, the mechanisms reflect a way of producing knowledge that erases individuality and buries particularities within generalizable categories and classifications. Of course, in all of these colonial mechanisms, we can identify disciplinary technologies as well.

Another example of a biopower epistemology may be this post's argument, which erases particulars in favor of deploying a universalized, and generalizable colonial encounter across the continent of Africa. Obviously, many current historiographical trends attempt to distance themselves from the production of knowledge based upon a biopower epistemology.

Any thoughts?

Greetings

For the next week, or so, we shall read lecture eleven of "Society Must Be Defended". Please use this virtual space to probe and push Foucault, to post comments, quotes, and concerns, to say whatever you want.