An analysis of war and state racism to think the governmentality in Foucault

• Grant number: 24/05813-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Ethics
• Principal Investigator: Silvana de Souza Ramos
• Grantee: Simony Silva Campello
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In 1976, Michel Foucault taught the course at the Collège de France: In defense of the Society, the central object of this research and the problem it intends to examine. The choice of this course is due to the fact that, in it, Foucault seems to establish in a concise way the relationship between: power, war and genealogy. Covering the epistemological, methodological fields and sedimenting their political reflection of the biopower. But in the last lesson of the course, abruptly, the theme of war goes through a change of application, a change that will imply a new form of Foucaultian political analysis, including even the last courses of Foucault at the Collège de France, where they are mobilized to address ethical issues. This new concept, which as late as 1976 presented itself as an art of government, will develop into a new technique of political rationality, governmentality. And that's where I draw the core problem from this research. Both periods and passages, as concepts, their ramifications, solutions and problems. The hypothesis I present is: war, in addition to being coupled to the concept of power of Foucault, is a fundamental part of the functioning of the biopower and so that State racism can constitute an effective relationship of life and death. Thus government policies are only justified and effective, because there is in the foundation of society, a tactical management of life, which operates through a continuous war. This war is for the recognition of oneself from differences, or in Foucauldian terms, through the establishment of normal and abnormal; biological warfare that aims to preserve society through the relationship between those who must live and those who must die, war of promise, which establishes a relationship in which security is always a future, so that war can always be preserved.This war that will be removed by Foucault, so that the art of governing appears as another form of political analysis. Is there that this change occurs? Lemke and Stival, see in this conceptual change a refinement in Foucault thought. Alliez and Lazzarato, comes as a form of denial of the real birth of the birth processes of the biopower that would be in the colonial project, a project that can only be carried out by a continuous war against those who were and continue to be colonized. To elucidate both the problem and the hypothesis it is necessary to make a movement of retreat and advance in the courses, first, to understand what Foucault understands by civil war in the course: Punitive Society and the conceptions of government that are presented in the course: security, territory and population. The two courses permeate the course: In defense of society, conjuring a movement of Foucault research and being essential to understand the movements, problems and hypotheses that lead Foucault to go from power to governmentality. To really understand the problems and issues that this movement would imply for the functioning of biopower and State racism.