Category Archives: Michel Foucault

Arendt, Foucault, Benjamin: On Violence, State, Law

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

This post discusses some scattered points raised about violence  by Hannah Arendt’s On Violence, Walter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence,” and Michel Foucault’s Society Must be Defended. Arendt makes a worthwhile distinction between power and violence, while recognizing that the two rarely … Continue reading →

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Critique, Illegality, Law, Michel Foucault, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

Geographies of the Outlaw

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

The word “outlaw”—outside of the law—implicitly articulates the intimate relationship between geography and the law. From the perspective of state-makers and capitalists, the groups of outlaws I’m collectively labeling “Motley Crews” (as a shorthand) pose a grave ideological and spatial … Continue reading →

Posted in Bandits, Carl Schmitt, Drugs, Elites, Forests, Frontiers, Gender, Historical-Geographies, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Karl Marx, Land, Law, Michel Foucault, Networks, Pirates, Post-Colonial, Power, Primitive Accumulation, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, Terror, The Body, The Sea, The State, Violence | Leave a comment

Spatiality & Power

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

“A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas… on the soft fibers of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Assemblages, Carl Schmitt, Dialectics, Everyday Life, Governmentality, Hegemony, Henri Lefebvre, Illegality, Karl Marx, Law, Michel Foucault, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

Cartographic Mexico

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Craib, Raymond. 2004. Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. I remember my social studies teacher in elementary school using the peel of an orange to show us why most world maps … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Land, Law, Maps, Michel Foucault, Nation/Nationalism, Place, Post-Colonial, Power, Science & Tech., Spatiality, Territory, The State | Leave a comment

The Logic of Violence in Civil War

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In this massive study, Stathis Kalyvas argues that violence in civil war complies with a peculiar logic. It’s this logic that explains and fixes together … Continue reading →

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Frontiers, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Michel Foucault, Sovereignty, Territory, The State, Violence | Leave a comment

Formations of Violence

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Feldman, Allen. 1991. Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Formations of Violence came highly recommended, and I was not disappointed. The overly dense theoretical introduction and Allen … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, City, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Michel Foucault, Nation/Nationalism, Peace, Place, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Scale, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, Terror, The Body, The State, Violence | 2 Comments

Understories in Northern New Mexico

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Kosek, Jake. 2006. Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press. Jake Kosek’s Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico is a solid model for the presentation of research. He brilliantly … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Everyday Life, Forests, Frontiers, Governmentality, Historical-Geographies, Land, Law, Michel Foucault, Nation/Nationalism, Place, Political Ecology, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Science & Tech., Spatiality, Territory, The Body, The State, Violence | Leave a comment

The Antinomies of ‘Community’

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Watts, Michael J. “The Sinister Political Life of Community: Economies of Violence and Governable Spaces in the Niger Delta, Nigeria.” Creed, Gerald. The Seductions of Community: Emancipations, Oppressions, Quandaries. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Community is often … Continue reading →

Posted in Hegemony, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Law, Michel Foucault, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Scale, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

Suffering for Territory

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Moore, Donald. 2005. Suffering for Territory: Race, Place, and Power in Zimbabwe. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. This is a hard book to summarize because of the intricacy of the argument, its theoretical architectures, and its deep ethnographic empirics—they are … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Governmentality, Historical-Geographies, Michel Foucault, Nation/Nationalism, Place, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Scale, Spatiality, Territory, Violence | 1 Comment

Hollow Land and the Politics of ‘Archupation’

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Weizman, Eyal. 2007. Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation. London: Verso. All military occupations are spatial operations and strategies. But the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and government have managed to make space the continuation of war by other means. New … Continue reading →

Posted in City, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Maps, Michel Foucault, Nation/Nationalism, Networks, Place, Power, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | 4 Comments