So Where Is the Danger ?

Special Report: Critique of Participation and Governmentality
Participation and Uses of Foucault
By Sandrine Rui
English

While Foucault’s work is little mobilized for thinking of the public sphere, his thinking does serve various uses. This paper proposes an outline of this diversity, which proceeds as much from the breaks, changing stances and contradictions of his work as from the differentiated readings of it. If Foucault is readily used to think of the effects of power and police, his work is less used to grasp the effects of political subjectivation, individual as well as collective. The paper insists on the entire interest of his works, which benefit from Foucauldian intuitions to contemplate the collective effects without ignoring the individual effects. Because where there is power, there is resistance.

Keywords

  • Foucault
  • governmentality
  • participation
  • public space
  • power
  • resistance
Go to the article on Cairn-int.info