JS-65.1
Transnational Dispositive Analysis? Cross-Cultural Limitations of Post-Foucauldian Methodology
The question of the cultural specificity of Foucault’s concepts particularly concerns today an approach of post-Foucauldian dispositive analysis. As an analytical category dispositive refers to a heterogenic composition of discursive and non-discursive elements of social reality, producing knowledge and linked together with dynamic relations of power which can be studied empirically on the basis of discursive and non-discursive data. In the historical perspective, dispositive always responds to a certain form of power/knowledge emerging within the Western heuristic models of government. Consequently, globalizing of the concept of dispositive can be discussed as traveling theory (in Edward W. Said’s terms) entangled in the process of translation and hybridization of its meaning. This consideration of cross-cultural and transnational inconsistencies and deficiencies of this methodological approach is illustrated with chosen examples of empirical research done in various political and epistemic arenas.