Beyond docile bodies and biopolitics: punishment in Michel Foucault

• Grant number: 24/09376-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date until: September 01, 2024
• End date until: June 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Marcos César Alvarez
• Grantee: Jade Gonçalves Roque
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/07923-7 - Center of the Study of Violence - NEV/USP, AP.CEPID

Abstract

Despite being unavoidable and continuing to be cited as a reference, MichelFoucault's work on the subject of punishment has been the subject of divergent interpretations(Garland, 1990, 1997, 2002; Fassin, 2017; Smith, 2008; Pratt, 1993; Spierenburg, 2004; Theobjective of the present research, taking this diagnosis in consideration, is to carry out atransversal reading of Foucault's work, pointing out, at each moment of his work, themeanings that punishment admits within the author's analytical scheme. At the end of thisoperation, the most general meaning that punishment assumes in the philosopher's thoughtwill be provided. The hypothesis to be evaluated is that punishment in Foucault is a positivesocial practice and produces experiences of subjectivation. From this point of view, in theauthor's work, punishment would not be restricted to a unidirectional fabrication of docilebodies but, above all, to the forging, always disputed, of the horizon of possibilities regardingwhat a subject can be - a horizon in the midst of which the docile body is constituted as justone among the multiple historically possible cases. To carry out our task of reconstructingFoucault's conception of punishment, texts produced between 1961 and 1984 in whichFoucault addressed the theme of punishment - either by providing explanations regarding itsfunctioning or giving more indirect clues about its social significance - will be systematicallyread. In addition to the books in which Foucault directly mentions punishment, will also beselected articles and texts that dealt with the topic. These last will be compiled from Dits etécrits (2001) and by the means of visits to the archives in which most of the work of Foucaultis found available for consultation today: the Fonds Foucault of the Bibliothèque Nationalede France - BnF and the collection of the Center Michel Foucault deposited at the InstitutMémoires de l'Édition Contemporaine - IMEC, both located in France. Since MichelFoucault's work is an unavoidable reference for studies of violence, crime and punitivetechniques in modern democratic societies, this project is directly related to the CEPID"Building Democracy Daily: Human Rights, violence and institutional trust" insofar as itproposes to investigate, from a theoretical dimension, the issue involving the consolidation ofdemocracy and the persistence of violence and overt punishment methods amid democraticsocieties. The organization and interpretation of Foucault's work on punishment - a task thathas not yet been satisfactorily carried out by national and international sociology, accordingto our literature review - is part of the effort to understand more broadly the overlap betweendemocracy and violence not only in Brazil, but also in the occidental world.