Notes on: Yancy G. (2001) A
Foucauldian (Genealogical) Reading of Whiteness:
The Production of the Black Body/Self and the
Racial Pathology of Pecola Breedlove in Toni
Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Radical
Philosophy Review 4 (1/2): 1-29
https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev200141/217
Dave Harris
[An earlier version of the book which it
anticipatorily plagiarises a bit eg Chapter 5 NB
his PhD does much more!]
This claims to be 'a Foucauldian analysis of
Whiteness as a philosophical, political,
anthropological and epistemological regime,
undergirded by a power/knowledge nexus' it
explains the embodiment of Whiteness 'vis a vis
the Black body/self' [so is it relational or not?]
It is a historically constructed standpoint, but
takes itself as universal. This article pursues 'a
genealogical reading' [not an archaeological
one?], where Whiteness emerges as 'a reactive
value-creating power'. The Black body/self is
disciplined and introjects this as a 'self
denigrating episteme'. This [process?] Is 'fuelled
by White ressentiment' [I still can't see how] and
via disciplinary techniques, this is also
internalised as 'a form of self ressentiment by
Blacks. We can see this through Morrison's
narrative, showing how the character Pecola
Breedlove is racially distorted, racially self
hating, but the product of various practices that
can be radically dismantled [all this is just in
the abstract!(1)].
Foucault has not specifically dealt with
Whiteness, but he has provided a helpful framework
in Discipline
and in the first volume of
Sexuality, and how knowledge is
produced. Whiteness becomes a power/knowledge
nexus within a framework that permits control of
what people do and leads to more intrusive enquiry
and disclosure. This is claimed to be genealogy as
in Foucault, and Davison is cited as saying this
is a wider method than archaeology, focusing on
'"the mutual relations between systems of truth
and modalities of power, the way in which there is
a 'political regime 'of the production of truth"
'(2). Whiteness can be seen as the production of
specific truth claims linked to the production of
regimes of truth and power.
The first stage is to provide a genealogical
reading of Whiteness, to locate Whiteness as a
'specific historical "positionality" 'which claims
to be universal but which is in fact an embodied
set of practices. Whiteness does not exist as a
simple element but it affirms itself in its 'many
modes of instantiation '. Foucauldian genealogy
separates out from contingencies possibilities of
'"no longer being… What we are" '. Whiteness tries
to hide from historicity and particularity and
represent itself as universal, a master sign. It
produces Black bodies and selves and disciplines
them and claims to know itself adequately as
truth.
Slavery can be understood as 'an expression, among
other things, of White ressentiment or hatred
'[but the two are not the same] (3). It is a
technique of discipline that particularly involves
'destructive self conceptualisation 'for Black
people, as in the analysis of sexuality, where a
value laden understanding of the self is
internalised. Power is understood as multiple
force relations organised in a bloc.
Morrison's novel can be read as an example. Pecola
is disciplined by Whiteness and comes to know
herself as inferior. The notion of resistance
might apply here, as in Foucault, and another
character can also be assessed.
A genealogical analysis of Whiteness shows that
Whiteness is a sort of emergence, a value code
developed by a certain group of people to organise
what seems to them to be intelligible, valuable,
normal, beautiful and so on. It aims to transcend
differences and become 'the transcendentally
signified ', to manage difference, to become the
site of universality, 'and epistemological and
ontological anchorage ', which makes other
identities in discourses marginal and other. There
is a series of binary relationships between self
and other, subject and object and so on, organised
in a hierarchy. The originating status of
Whiteness is concealed, '"usually unmarked and
unnamed" '[citing Frankenberg]. (4) This status is
maintained, because there is a risk in recognising
the normality and history of Whiteness.
Genealogical analysis can expose it. One approach
involves Nietzsche, showing how changes have
escaped our notice and have been masked by
specific interests, or the exposure of values that
claim to be universal or true. [not racial though]
.Instead, the 'value creating power 'of various
practices is revealed to challenge hegemony.
Whiteness has produced self ressentiment among
Blacks, even to their life before enslavement. The
Middle Passage was particularly important [I think
this ignores the previous effects of captivity and
imprisonment in Africa]. This [role stripping] as
shown in the character of Pecola, who 'sees
herself through the lens of Whiteness '. (5).
Blacks are assumed to be naturally inferior,
bestial, not entitled to any rights, subhuman, and
this is similar to the process in Sexuality
where members of society are trained to see
themselves as having a particular sexual nature,
and to take their sexuality as given [although one
commentator notes that scientific study
particularly helps here].
Whiteness constitutes Black people as objects, but
White people are subjects. Blacks internalised
these truths, and Foucault's Discipline
provides a description of the methods of
panopticism to explain how this works, even before
the Middle Passage.
The term White was first used, apparently, to
refer to a race of people in 1604, in the American
colonies, where a great deal of othering and
cleansing of nonWhites was underway, although
Whiteness was already seen as connected with
morality in paintings and literature, as early as
the Crusades and the 11th century. Some historians
have argued that racism did not exist before 1850,
and so the first examples of African slavery did
not involve some hierarchy of Whiteness — but
Yancy argues that the practices of Whiteness were
clearly indicated even if there was no explicit
theory, that these practices were in effect
rationalisations, historically concrete forms.
[There is also discussion of the dynamic of the
erasure of nonWhite others and self erasure, which
turns on his term ressentiment — apparently, a
certain Gordon implies that Whiteness need not
have taken the form of hating others, a peculiar
partial and concrete form, which adds to the
possibilities of critique, 'revealing it as
historically constructed and capable of being
overcome' ()]
The Middle Passage shows the disciplinary
practices best, through specialisation, for
example [with more examples as with the book].
Yancy stresses once again that this power was
productive of the new docile bestial Black body,
subject to 'the objectifying dimensions of the
public gaze', which included exoticizing it.
Sciences further normalised biopower and made
Black bodies abnormal, and produced the myth of
the Negro rapist. Foucault never discussed the
racial by mentions of cleanliness and sexual
control in Sexuality, but takes a class
dimension. Yancy wants to add a racial dimension
to establishing bourgeois identity as European and
White. There is the same stuff on the Black body
as a site of disease and a propensity to crime
produced by evolution.
There is the same sort of critique of European
philosophers as 'the philosophical performativity
of Whiteness' (10), where European philosophers
were 'seduced by the value code of Whiteness '.
This linked reason to power, agreeing with
Foucault. Examples include Hume and Kant as
before, and Locke, with a Foucauldian post script
showing the inherent link between knowledge and
power, and this case the scientific and
philosophical knowledge of Black inferiority, and
the actual practices, including lynching, of
disciplining Black bodies, the 'White
power/knowledge nexus '(12). Here, 'what holds
these examples together is not a deep racial
conspiracy, but a White power bloc '[not an
episteme]. This imposes itself in everyday life,
in a deep way, as interpellation.
He now goes on to analyse the novel and the
character as 'negatively marked, shaped and
discipline within a (generative) White semiotic
field '(11) [I will only skim this because I
haven't read the novel]
Apparently Morrison specifically refers to a White
gaze and has an implicit social constructionist
theory of the self. She also has an implicit view
of a racist 'power/knowledge nexus '(13), and
similarities with Foucault are noted throughout
[talk up, unkind critics would say]. There
is a claim that the character knows as a Black
person that she is a 'raciated object, limited,
and somatically uglified ', which is linked to the
notion of self ressentiment [which is self disgust
really, feeling inferior] (14). She wishes for
blue eyes. Fanon is quoted as reporting a similar
feeling of always being inferior in White eyes.
There are connections with the idea that Whiteness
is a form of property, and that the Black
character has nothing, that Black possessions are
worthless or dirty. Class is also hinted at. The
family is aware of the limits which constrain them
and the weight of Whiteness. One character denies
her own Blackness and tries to adopt a fiction
being White
[Lots more]
The article ends by reverting to Foucault and what
would happen if individuals are able to resist or
block power relations and domination, whether they
are able to impose their own notions of freedom. F
is rather pessimistic, but Yancy says that he does
not consider psychological domination at least. If
we operate at the phenomenological level and go
beyond genealogy, people can think their own
history and discover their own possibilities,
liberate themselves psychologically, and this is
important, at least at the micropolitical level.
Yancy actually advocates psychotherapy, albeit 'in
conjunction with political resistance '(24) and
thinks that psychological liberation will lead to
more general political awareness and attention to
the problem of Whiteness and its universality.
Foucault does not support any notion of
authenticity in connection with the self, however
so there is no 'Black authentic self waiting to be
discovered… No "ontological Black self" '(25),
only a field of possibilities. There has been a
real oppression of Black people by White people.
You can find in the experience of people of
African descent 'narratives that allow for a
healthier sense of who [we want] to be '. We can
take on ressentiment. But, with Foucault, no one
'exists on the outside of power'. We can develop
'narrative importance which are less restrictive
and less damaging ', but any space 'comes replete
with its own power/knowledge nexus '[so real
Foucault at last!]
Here are some notes I gathered on the conept of
episteme in Foucault. First, my own from reading
of Archaeology
‘relations that unite... the
discursive practices that give rise to
epistemological figures, sciences and...
formalised systems' (191). These affect
the different thresholds and the paths between
them. An episteme is more than a form of
knowledge or type of rationality, but is best
seen as an 'indefinite field of relations',
including relations with other fields. This
varies over time. It gives the right to be a
science, not as a one-off gift, but as an
historical practice again. NB about
science! Other kinds of archaeology are
possible: do we need, say, an archaeology of
sexuality which would involve not only
the science of sexuality, but also a field of
possible enunciations in its own right?
Should we not be oriented to ethical rather
than epistemic issues? What about political
knowledge? Foucault says that he is interested
in the emergence of sciences in particular for
several reasons -- because they are emerging
strongly these days, because it is an
important political task to criticise science,
but principally because they demonstrate best
the points about positivity.
Science emerge as...
1. It is
a selection from knowledge, a local region in
knowledge. Its boundaries vary as an effective
discursive formations. The function of science
is the important issue rather than the
science/ideology issue [which Althusser
had made central]. Turning to that [rather
hastily I thought], science and ideology share
features as discursive practices. There
is no sharp distinction between them, but the
level of discursive formation is decisive.
Whether one uses causal explanations is
irrelevant, and it is not just a matter of
rigour. [Having disposed of that], the
ideological role of science is established by
looking at 'the system of formation of its
objects, its types of enunciation, its
concepts, its theoretical choices'
(186). [So a great deal of wriggling must take
place here. Both science and ideology are
discourses, but we do not want to let anyone
say that therefore they are of equal value --
we have not yet got to post-modernism. So we
assert some differences, and claim they are
important. But this is really very near the
end of the book, and we have not mentioned
these crucial differences before but have
stayed at a very general and abstract level
indeed. By the time we have got to these
crucial specific differences, we have done
enough theorizing and there is time and space
enough only to jot down a few remarks].
2.
Discursive forms emerge first as positivities
[practices become autonomous and systematised
first?]. Then there is a stage on the
'threshold of epistemologisation', when norms
are clarified and begin to function as a
model. Then formal criteria and logical
explicitness develop,on the 'threshold of
scientificity'. Further definitions of axioms,
propositions,and rules of transformation leave
us on the threshold of 'formalisation' (187).
The way these develop and interlock can vary:
there are no neat periodisations, and stages 1
and 2 can be mixed, for example. Mathematics
seems to have crossed all the thresholds at
once, which is why it is often taken as a
model for the development of a discipline.
3. So
distinct histories are possible. There can be
a history of formalisation, and one of
scientificity. [Bachelard and Canguilhem are
much admired here]. Such histories are often
situated within science itself, and thus tend
to be saturated with terms like truth and
error, rational and non rational. A history
can stop at the stage of epistemologisation --
not all discursive formations lead to
sciences.
4.
Analysing the dynamics within discursive
formations and positivities leads to an
analysis of the episteme itself, the
‘relations that unite... the discursive
practices that give rise to epistemological
figures, sciences and... formalised
systems' (191). These affect the
different thresholds and the paths between
them. An episteme is more than a form of
knowledge or type of rationality, but is best
seen as an 'indefinite field of relations',
including relations with other fields. This
varies over time. It gives the right to be a
science, not as a one-off gift, but as an
historical practice again.
For Kendall and Wickham the notion of the
episteme in Foucault is similar to the idea of a
paradigm in Kuhn (repeated by several other
commentaries -- and denied by others!)
For Oleary and Chia (2007). Epistemes and
Structures of Sensemaking in Organizational
Life. Journal of Management Enquiry 16 (4)
(I just
happened to come across them on Google) it is
more abstract again eg
‘Episteme’, the underlying code
of a culture that govern its language, its
logic, its schemas of perception, its values
and its techniques, etc., is what makes
collective meaning and sense-making possible
and in this paper we examine three epistemes
of organizational sense-making for
legitimising and justifying managerial actions
and decision-making. There are also classical
and modern epistemes. The key idea of the
archaeological method is that systems of
thought and knowledge (epistemes or discursive
formations, in Foucault’s terminology) are
governed by rules, beyond those of grammar and
logic, that operate beneath the consciousness
of individual subjects and define a system of
conceptual possibilities that determines the
boundaries of thought in a given domain and
period. So, for example, History of
Madness should, Foucault maintained, be
read as an intellectual excavation of the
radically different discursive formations that
governed talk and thought about madness from
the seventeenth through the nineteenth
centuries. (Stanford Encyclopaedia)
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