Category Archives: Governmentality

Spatiality & Power

“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

Understories in Northern New Mexico

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 | 1 Comment

Political Ecology, I

Robbins, Paul. 2004. Political Ecology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Paul Robbins’ Political Ecology offers a sweeping and surprisingly complete overview to this exciting body of work and practice. I like the way Robbins bills it as, more than a body of … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Gender, Governmentality, Historical-Geographies, Land, Networks, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Science & Tech., The State, Violence | 3 Comments

Suffering for Territory

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

Discipline, Punish & Illegalities

Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage. “‘Discipline’ may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole … Continue reading

Posted in Governmentality, Illegality, Law, Michel Foucault, Power, Spatiality, Violence | 4 Comments

Security, Territory, Population

Foucault, Michel. 2007. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-1978. Foucault says he’s following the genesis of a political knowledge that put “population” at the center of its concerns. He uses “government” as the guiding thread of … Continue reading

Posted in City, Governmentality, Michel Foucault, Political Economy, Power, Spatiality, The State, Violence | 5 Comments