The question of freedom in Foucault and la boetie

Para lograr entender la cuestión de la libertad en Foucault, es necesario analizar la problemática de la “servidumbre voluntaria”, cuya enigmática condición fue examinada primero por Étienne de La Boétie. Su ensayo, titulado De la Servitude Volontaire, discute el enigma de la política quizá más complejo: ¿por qué los hombres se someten al dominio? A partir de la idea de que la libertad, lejos de significar ausencia de poder, solo se puede entender y realizar por medio de su relación con el mismo poder, el autor pretende demostrar que Foucault, por un lado, se interesa por lo que nos relaciona con el poder respecto de los varios niveles de nuestra subjetivación; por otro lado, por cómo somos capaces de resistir, poner en duda y problematizar este vínculo y de comprometernos con prácticas de auto-constitución que, para él, son “prácticas de libertad”.This paper argues that the key to understanding question of freedom in Foucault lies in the problematic of ‘voluntary servitude’, whose enigmatic condition was first explored in the sixteenth century by Étienne de La Boétie. The essay, De la Servitude Volontaire, comes to grips with what is perhaps the most intractable enigmas in politics: why people freely submit to their own domination. Starting from the idea that freedom, so far from signifying the absence of power, is only intelligible and realizable through its relation to power, the author shows that Foucault is concerned with that which binds us to power at the level of our subjectivities; and, with the other side of this, how we are able to resist, contest and problematize this attachment, and how we are able to engage in practices of self-constitution which are, for him, ‘practices of freedom’

'Critique will be the art of voluntary inservitude': Foucault, La Boetie and the Problem of Power.

One of the more seemingly problematic areas of Foucault’s thought is on the question of freedom. What place does freedom have in Foucault’s thought; how might it be understood? If ‘power is everywhere’, if it is coextensive with all social relations, if it is to be found in everyday interactions between individuals, then what room is left for freedom? How can spaces for freedom be reconciled with the ubiquity of power relations, with the apparent omnipresence of disciplinary constraints, forms of power/knowledge which construct individuals as subjects, and with governmental rationalities aimed at normalising behaviour? Foucault sees freedom as a kind of ‘game’ played with power, as a series of strategic moves that can take place within certain limits set by power. However, if this is the case, it would seem to offer only limited opportunities for freedom. Freedom, and the possibilities of resisting power, would seem to be produced by, or at least realised through, the operation of power itself, and are therefore always constrained by it

The Artist of Not Being Governed : The Emergence of the Political Subject

Peer reviewe

Transforming challenging schools through the leadership of superheads

The ascent of ‘school-improvement’ discourses in recent educational development initiatives has often centred on the installations of senior teachers from other schools into those that are seen as ‘failing’. Specifically, the notion of ‘superhead’ has been introduced in recent years as a strategy for improving ‘failing’ schools, where such individuals are given a brief of ‘raising standards’. Education' texts have abundant literature on alternative conceptions of leadership and on the role of leadership in effecting change. Little exists, however, on the impact of external leaders or ‘superheads’ transforming schools in challenging circumstances. Less still has been written on how individuals assume such roles and how they understand the process of transformation. This study takes an insider-outsider perspective on the practical challenge entailed in transforming school performance. From working as a teacher and consultant in two of the three inner city case study schools in Northern England, I draw upon data generated by using a mixed methods approach across these schools, all emerging from challenging circumstances. I examine how leadership impacts upon middle leaders and pupils through the narratives of mainstream ideology. The voices of the adults and children in these data serve as a reminder of the human impact resulting from external and internal interventions in schools. Social theory is mobilised in support of this task by drawing upon the writings of Foucault to problematise taken-for-granted practices in education. Foucault’s tools provide a mechanism for inspecting the narrative, through which I align history, power and discipline to education. Thus, I argue that a ‘superhead’ being transported in to transform a school is too simplistic a notion and one that undermines the complexities visible within these data gathered in this study

Contemporary African Cities in Postmillenial African Films

This study discusses postmillennial cinema narratives from six African cities: Cairo, Monrovia, Nairobi, Kinshasa, Luanda and Johannesburg. It argues that filmic representations of street life in these cities is an act of self-narration and that it indexes consciousness of Africa’s postmillennial urban citizenship. Within these films, the street is shown as a frontier as well as a shared space that enables the conversation of citizenship narratives in those respective cities. The research straddles two main disciplinary areas: urban social theory and film theory. Basing my arguments on the way Africa’s urban cinematic representations may be comprehended as a blend of both the cinematic form and urban citizenship discourse, I assert that such entanglement is most vivid in the images of the street which, I argue, perform three main roles: exposé, reportage and archival

Pluralistic Sense-Making: A World of Becoming, by William E

Since its origins in the European spirit of the Renaissance, modern philosophy has oscillated between its metaphysical desire for pure knowledge and its acknowledgment of what Connolly calls the 'urgency of today' (p. 41), the everyday demands for action which cannot afford to wait for pure knowledge. For many, this division is heuristic more than it is real, and therefore, it is a chronological problem of foundations and consequences before it is a conflict of priorities. It is therefore natural that our post-modern disillusionment with the optimism of modernity translates into the acute awareness that in the grand improvisation of history and of the history of thought, placing one priority after the other in time almost fatally amounts to choosing the first and giving up on the second: the promise of a time where knowledge can offer practical guidance has been broken. As a result most practical philosophy and ethics have turned out to spring out of metaphysics itself, while ethical research has receded into the abstract domain once attributed to the search for knowledge. Of course, there is something artificial in this schematic division between pre-modernity, modernity, and postmodernity, and even Descartes was aware of the problem described here as postmodern: for him already, the problem of deferring the application of some ethical imperative to an abstract later, that is to say, to the time when ethical imperatives were appropriately discovered, could not be construed as a morally neutral act. Instead, it had direct consequences on our present behavior. His response, which he called his 'provisional morals,' was an ironic poke at the highmindedness of those among his colleagues who engaged in endless disputes about moral principles: Descartes pointed out that such concern for principles relied on the hypocritical assumption that it was for the epistemologist to keep the hous

Marketing, Development, and the Question of Meaning

Originally developed as a sales technique, marketing ended up playing an economic and political role globally. With the advent of globalization and sustainability issues, the importance given to the techniques of marketing in both analyses and in communication limits the possibility of mutual understanding and of social creativity. A profound understanding of what is at stake for society and culture is not what matters when the focus is on the ways to maintain the superficial link to the instrument of power. The market plays a central role within the fields of marketing, economics and politics. Yet, questions of what the definition of the market is in these disciplines, and which premises can be considered as being the most fundamental ones in the marketing field, are ones that need answering. Attention is needed on why concepts such as legitimacy, desire, and sacred are fundamental ones for an understanding of evolving challenges. An interdisciplinary approach can help reconstruct the outdated economic foundation of marketing, thereby ensuring that marketing does not undermine and counteract democracy. This the paper intends to help us to not only understand the historical legacy but also to be more attentive to market changes and social challenges of our times