«Live and let die»: Foucault and the genealogy of racism
«Hacer vivir y dejar morir»: Foucault y la genealogía del racismo
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This article addresses the Foucault seminar of 1975-6 entitled Il faut défendre la société, or Defending society. The article is not intended to summarize the course, but rather to discern a constellation of radical starting points in Foucault's thought. We will focus on the strong criticism of the repressive or Hobbesian hypothesis of power, and the development of a productive or genealogical conception of power. This is connected to the question of the productive role of racism in a new form of power and sovereignty, one that Foucault calls biopower. Racism is analyzed in terms of how it reintroduces in biopolitical sovereignty the power to kill and kill, a power that has distanced itself from sovereignty as it has become a form of pastoral power, as Foucault later argues in his lectures. . Finally, we discuss the ways in which Foucault's immensely original analysis of racism can be used in the American context to understand the repetition and virulence of acts of violence against racially marked subjects, and how this challenges the political philosophy of our time.
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