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Sustaining Significance of Confessional Form: Taking Foucault to Attitudinal Research
Get PDFThis paper offers a conceptual reconstruction and empirical case study of an often-eclipsed concept of Michel Foucault’s genealogical project, confession. Departing from Foucault’s dictum that his core research interest rests in the experience of the subject, I argue that, without a detailed understanding of diverse modalities of the confessional form, various subjectivation processes and epistemological procedures could not be fully grasped. In the first part, I systematise Foucault’s incoherent confessional account against the backdrop of his entangled genealogies of modern man and the human sciences. Subsequently, I introduce a case study of a quantitative attitudinal survey based on face-to-face interviews to test Foucault’s model of confession in present-day circumstances and demonstrate its sustaining analytical significance by disclosing the cognitive technique of coding behaviour. Thus far, governmentality studies have confronted positivistic methods in social sciences to display their objectifying functions. In contrast, I use the technique of coding behaviour to immerse into these scientific practices. Such a perspective delivers a fine-grained exposure of epistemological strategies in social sciences that are enabled by the appropriation of the confessional model and that constitute subjective identities on an individual and mass scale
Ungovernable Counter-Conduct: Ivan Illich’s Critique of Governmentality
Get PDFWithin Michel Foucault’s own conceptualization of governmentality, there is little room for something like ‘ungovernable life’. The latter seems to hint at a form of social conduct beyond power-relations, which would offend Foucault’s basic philosophical postulates. I argue that this identification between governmentality and power as such demonstrates a one-sided focus on the history of Western power-relations. By opposing Foucault’s genealogy of governmentality to Ivan Illich’s critical history of government, I delineate indigenous struggles against governmentalization as a form of ungovernable counter-conduct. Throughout his books from the 1970s to 1990s, Illich wrote a critical history of government surprisingly similar to Foucault’s, from the pastorate to modern political economy. However, rather than merely describing this history, Illich argued governmentalization alienated human beings from their autonomy. As a former missionary priest, he criticized the Church’s and modern governments’ attempts to subsume populations under a conduct of conducts. He advocated anticolonial resistance to subsumption under Western governmental regimes. In Illich’s appreciation of decolonized life, an ungovernable form of life can be discovered, which I defend with the example of Zapatismo and indigenous self-government through mandar obedeciendo
Genealogies of Nothing: Enforced Disappearances, Fable Lives, and Archives in Erasure
Get PDFThis article investigates the political impact of collective story-telling practices in the enforced disappearances from a Foucauldian perspective. I utilize two main theoretical frameworks: on the one hand, that of necropolitics, a kind of power that works on the management of death. On the other hand, that of genealogy as a type of history that mobilizes subjugated knowledges. The first part situates these stories within the framework of genealogy: subjugated knowledges that are buried and disqualified as a part of the work of necropolitics. The second part argues that a Foucauldian genealogical approach to these stories is insufficient: necropolitical archives, when they testify to the work of power, remain incomplete at best and actively erase more often. The third part analyzes these stories as examples of critical fabulation. What is at stake in the insistence of the people searchers to tell their stories, I argue, is the collective emergence of another kind of fable – an act of fabulation in line with what Saidiya Hartman calls “critical fabulation,” which multiplies the possibilities of the present and the past by precisely telling stories of ‘nothing.
Editorial
Get PDFSverre Raffnsøe, Alain Beaulieu, Bregham Dalgliesh, Knut Ove Eliassen, Verena Erlenbusch, Alex Feldman, Marius Gudmand-Høyer, Thomas Götselius, Robert Harvey, Robin Holt, Leonard Richard Lawlor, Daniele Lorenzini, Edward McGushin, Hernan Camilo Pulido Martinez, Giovanni Mascaretti, Johanna Oksala, Clare O’Farrell, Rodrigo Castro Orellana, Eva Bendix Petersen, Alan Rosenberg, Annika Skoglund, Dianna Taylor, Thomas Lin, Andreas Dahl Jakobsen & Rachel Raffnsøe
The Digital Turn in Business Anthropology
Get PDFThis essay examines the emerging “digital turn” in business anthropology, a phenomenon propelled by the increasing prevalence and influence of digital technologies. Despite the significant underrepresentation of digital anthropology in current literature within the Journal of Business Anthropology, its relevance to the traditionally focused areas of organizational culture, marketing, consumer research, advertising, and user experience is irrefutable, given the rapid digitalization of the business landscape. By exploring evidence of the “digital turn” and the potential for digital anthropology to overtake design anthropology as a dominant paradigm, this essay advocates for integrating digital anthropology into the professional discourses and research practices of business anthropologists. It highlights the capacity of digital anthropology to equip practitioners with the necessary tools and perspectives to navigate and respond effectively to the ever-evolving digital landscape. Furthermore, the essay delves into the potential of emerging digital technologies, such as AI, to revolutionize anthropological research and practice. Simultaneously, it underscores the entrepreneurial opportunities available to founder anthropologists, specifically by productizing anthropological knowledge and methods. However, practitioners must also acknowledge and address significant challenges such as the rapid pace of digital transformation, privacy and ethical considerations, and the risk of introducing machine bias into the research process. In conclusion, the essay posits that the emerging “digital turn” in business anthropology offers substantial opportunities that will shape the discipline in the coming years, warranting its inclusion by practitioners and academics alike
Lessons from the 4th Global Business Anthropology Summit
Get PDFThis was not a typical summit. It was an extraordinary event that offered a unique and immersive experience. Diverging from traditional conferences, the organizers crafted alternative participation formats, engaging activities, and inspiring venues. This report has been co-written with contributing thoughts from members of the Global Business Anthropology Summit (GBAS) Mexico 2023 organizing committee and activity coordinators. We aimed to capture experiences and knowledge, challenging conventional publishing styles by blending the voices of those who actively participated in the summit. The result is a polyphonic text interwoven with visual sketches and photographs taken by the participants