Wie können Freiheit und Widerstand innerhalb von Foucaults Theorie der Macht und Subjektivierung konzipiert werden? Diese zentrale Frage der Interpretation von Foucaults vielschichtigem Werk wurde breit diskutiert und dennoch nicht befriedigend beantwortet. Dass bis heute kaum Klarheit über den Status von Freiheit in Foucaults Werk erreicht werden konnte, liegt auch daran, dass die gängigen Interpretationen die verschiedenen Freiheitsbegriffe, die in Foucaults Werk zu finden sind, vermischen. Der Artikel bringt deshalb Ordnung in diese unübersichtliche Lage, indem er die verschiedenen Freiheitsbegriffe und (...) Freiheitsprobleme in Foucaults Werk differenziert. Dies ermöglicht ein besseres Verständnis von Foucaults Freiheitsdenken und Machttheorie und führt zu einem neuen Freiheitsbegriff: Freiheit als die Fähigkeit zur kritischen Reflexion der eigenen Subjektivierung. Weil diese "Freiheit als Kritik" nur durch politische Institutionen ermöglicht werden kann, produziert dieser Freiheitsbegriff neue Anschlüsse von Foucaults Denken an die normative politische Theorie und postfundamentalistische Demokratietheorie. How can freedom and resistance be conceived within Foucault's theory of power and subjectivation? This central question of the interpretation of Foucault's multi-layered work has been widely discussed and yet not satisfactorily answered. The fact that until today there has been little clarity about the status of freedom in Foucault's work is also due to the fact that the current interpretations confuse the various concepts of freedom which can be found in Foucault's work. The article therefore brings order to this confusing situation by differentiating the various concepts and problems of freedom in Foucault's work. This enables a better understanding of Foucault's thinking of freedom and his theory of power and leads to a new concept of freedom: freedom as the capability to critically reflect on one's own subjectivation. Because this "freedom as critique" can only be made possible by political institutions, this concept of freedom produces new connections from Foucault's thinking to normative political theory and post-fundamentalist democratic theory. (shrink)

Freedom, conceived ontologically, is power's condition of possibility. Yet, considering that the subject's interests and identity are constantly shaped, one still has to explain how – theoretically speaking – individuals can resist control. This is precisely the issue I address in the following pages. Following a brief overview of Foucault's contribution to our understanding of power, I turn to discuss the role of visibility vis-à-vis control, and show how the development of disciplinary techniques reversed the visibility of power. While Foucault (...) illustrates that during different historical periods, distinct modes of visibility are produced by power in order to control society, I argue that the very same power that produces visibility is concomitantly dependent upon it. In addition, I maintain that visibility is a necessary component of resistance. But Foucault – perhaps due to his premature death – never adequately explains how individuals can resist the mechanisms of control in a world in which power is ubiquitous. To help clarify this enigma, I turn to Hannah Arendt's insights into power, freedom, plurality, and natality. These concepts, I claim, can serve as a corrective to Foucault because they make room for resistance without assuming that humans can exit power's web. (shrink)

A steady stream of commentary criticizes Foucault’s ‘agentless position’ for its inability to observe, much less theorize, the ways in which human actors manoeuvre, negotiate, transform or resist the structures within which they are situated. This article does not so much refute this critical consensus but seeks to reconstruct a framework from Foucault’s writings, which allows space for ‘human agency’, including individuals’ pursuit of tactics, attempts at solving problems, reactions to unexpected events and their reflexive work on their own subjectivities. (...) The revised analytical framework, ‘dispositional analytics’, integrates the study of self-techniques with the analysis of dispositifs. Recognizing that Foucault’s work eschewed an adequate consideration of individuals’ capacity to affect the forces that bear upon them, the article discusses the sociopolitical conditions for self-formation. Finally, a case study of ‘voice-hearers’ who use self-techniques to reconstitute themselves in opposition to institutional psychiatry is reinterpreted through the framework of dispositional analysis. (shrink)

This essay examines the contemporary masculinity of straight, white men in the business classes of the United States as a category of identity. I argue that this form of masculine identity is currently in crisis, and, through a reading of the 1995 film Toy Story, develop an argument about the value of ‘downsizing’ masculinity in an era of diminished work expectations.