Foucault on Governmentality and Population: The Impossible Discovery

Curtis, Bruce

doi:10.2307/3341588

Cited by 114 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…10 Thus, governmentality also concerns how to make individuals govern themselves in a certain way. 11 In a Foucauldian spirit, the process of making sense of a demographic development such as the Russian one, described briefly in the introduction, can be seen as being shaped by a certain governmentality. It can be argued that in modern societies, state power is wielded less through the use of direct power over subjects, using legislation, discipline and punishment, but to a greater extent through regularization where the state is active through exper-tise-giving and norm-setting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Civil Society and Biopolitics in Contemporary Russia: The Case of Russian “Daddy-Schools”

Åberg

2015

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This article deals with civil society organizations active in the field of family policy and demographic issues in contemporary Russia. This article uses Michel Foucault's concepts of biopolitics and governmentality and later developments discussing technologies of citizenship. More specifically, using interviews, documents, and participant observations, socalled "daddy-schools" that have emerged in and around Saint Petersburg since 2008, are studied as a mode of governmentality. The analysis shows how the civic initiative studied attempted to empower fathers and how it has altered demographic discourses while approaching similar societal goals as the state does in its biopolitical strategies. Thus, the daddy-schools provide a complementary discourse concerning fatherhood while approaching the same perceived demographic crisis that the Russian state is challenged by.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Civil Society and Biopolitics in Contemporary Russia: The Case of Russian “Daddy-Schools”

Åberg

2015

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“…It will conclude with some comments on the political nature of numbers and the geographies they help to constitute. In a highly perceptive and critical article, Bruce Curtis has analysed the use (and abuse) of the term 'population' in Foucault's writings (Curtis, 2002). In charting the emergence of the term population, Curtis shows that Foucault (1973) focused on both social medicine and, later, on political-economics and government.…”

Section: From Disciplined To Regulated Bodiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foucault's population geographies: classifications, biopolitics and governmental spaces

Legg¹

2005

Popul. Space Place

212

165

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“…While Foucault described population as the object of biopolitics he did not investigate the specific practices that make it possible to know and then act upon populations. To the contrary, he tended to over-emphasize population as an object on which power can act and as a thing that follows processes and laws (Curtis, 2002). However, particular techniques are required to provide detailed knowledge of a population and render it into thought, thereby enabling it to be evaluated, diagnosed and acted upon.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Population Objects: Interpassive Subjects

Ruppert

2011

Sociology

133

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The Open University, UK AbstractWhile Foucault described population as the object of biopower he did not investigate the practices that make it possible to know population. Rather, he tended to overemphasize it as an object on which power can act. However, population is not an object awaiting discovery, but is represented and enacted by specific devices such as censuses and what I call population metrics. The latter enact populations by assembling different categories and measurements of subjects (biographical, biometric and transactional) in myriad ways to identify and measure the performance of populations. I account for both the object and subject by thinking about how devices consist of agencements; that is, specific arrangements of humans and technologies whose mediations and interactions not only enact populations but also produce subjects. I suggest that population metrics render subjects interpassive whereby other beings or objects take up the role and act in place of the subject.

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Foucault on Governmentality and Population: The Impossible Discovery

Cited by 114 publications

References 15 publications

Civil Society and Biopolitics in Contemporary Russia: The Case of Russian “Daddy-Schools”

Civil Society and Biopolitics in Contemporary Russia: The Case of Russian “Daddy-Schools”

Foucault's population geographies: classifications, biopolitics and governmental spaces

Population Objects: Interpassive Subjects

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