Analysis Of Foucault In Docile Bodies By Judith Butler

Performativity

Judith Butler originally made sense of the concept of performativity and subjectivities through gender roles. Foucault’s analysis of governmentality leads to “…a normative ideal which is unilaterally imposed by an external sovereign.” (Disch, 1999: 554). Drawing on Foucault’s argument that power is productive through governmentality, Butler describes this process as the subject comes into being through a matter of performativity (Mills, 2003: 258) and does so “…through conjoining Foucault’s recognition of the founding role of power with a psychoanalytic approach to the subject.” (Mills, 2003: 259). Subjection signifies both the process of becoming a subject and becoming subordinated to a power which comes into being through

them narrative. Foucault in Docile Bodies discusses the emergence of normativity with regards to the prison system. There is a move from medieval forms of punishment, corporal in nature, to the prison system. This change in punishment becomes normalized in such a way that it goes without question. Liberalism in this manner, proceeds on the basis of this narrative that the Others are the problem. As with the spread of liberalism, there is the continuing absorption of normative values. It is the aspired extension of these normative liberal constructs which “…is underwritten by the unreserved righteousness of its mission.” (Evans, 2010: 421). The irony which underlies liberal peace is that “…the more peace is commanded, the more war is declared in order to achieve it” and therefore “…universalizing war in pursuit of peace.” (Evans, 2010:

With the increase in global mobility, internalization of security threats become magnified. It is with this that the biopolitical form comes to being. Biopolitics entails the “regulation of populations for society’s overall betterment.” (Evans, 2010: 416) and intensifies an insider and outsider narrative. The biopolitical narrative “…portrays a commitment to the supremacy of certain species types.” (Evans, 2010: 426), making a distinction between “insured and non-insured life.” (Duffield, 2007: 24) acting to “…rationalize the problem of governing groups of humans represented in the form of politics.” (Duffield, 2007: 6). To assume a complete identity there needs to be a commitment from all facets to a singular identity. However, this is never possible, and so most commonly the hegemonic character assumes to subjugate the weaker identities to achieve complete identity