Why Study Problematizations? Making Politics Visible
Carol Bacchi
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.
DOI: 10.4236/ojps.2012.21001   PDF    HTML     25,931 Downloads   58,323 Views   Citations

Abstract

This paper introduces the theoretical concept, problematization, as it is developed in Foucauldian-inspired poststructural analysis. The objective is two-fold: first, to show how a study of problematizations politicizes taken-for-granted “truths”; and second, to illustrate how this analytic approach opens up novel ways of approaching the study of public policy, politics and comparative politics. The study of problematizations, it suggests, directs attention to the heterogenous strategic relations – the politics – that shape lives. It simultaneously alerts researchers to their unavoidable participation in these relations, opening up a much-needed conversation about the role of theory in politics.

Share and Cite:

Bacchi, C. (2012) Why Study Problematizations? Making Politics Visible. Open Journal of Political Science, 2, 1-8. doi: 10.4236/ojps.2012.21001.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] Alasuutari, P. (2010). The nominalist turn in theorizing power. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 13, 403-417. doi:10.1177/1367549410377579
[2] Bacchi, C. (1999). Women, policy and politics: The construction of policy problems. London: Sage.
[3] Bacchi, C. (2009). Analysing policy: What’s the problem represented to be? Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson Education.
[4] 19“What was at stake was not just a question of the formal accretion of knowledge but an exercise in one’s relation to truth that was thereby also an exercise in self-transformation and ultimately transgression” (Osborne, 2003: p. 12).
[5] Bacchi, C. (2011). Gender mainstreaming and reflexivity: Asking some hard questions. Keynote address at the Advancing Gender+ Training in Theory and Practice Conference: An International Conference for Practitioners, Experts and Commissioners in Gender+ Training. Madrid: Complutense University.
[6] Bacchi, C. (2012). Strategic interventions and ontological politics: Research as political practice. In: A. Bletsas and C. Beasley (Eds.), Engaging with Carol Bacchi: Strategic interventions and exchanges. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press.
[7] Bacchi, C., & Bonham, J. (2011). Reclaiming discursive practices as an analytic focus: Political implications. Geography, Environment and Population Seminar Series. Adelaide: School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide.
[8] Bacchi, C., & R?nnblom, M. (2011). Feminist discursive institutionalism—What’s discursive about it? Limitations of conventional political studies paradigms. 2nd European Conference on Politics and Gender, Budapest, 13-15 January.
[9] Bigo, D. (2002). Security and immigration: Toward a critique of the governmentality of unease. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 27, 63-92.
[10] Bletsas, A. (2012). Spaces between: Elaborating the theoretical underpinnings of the WPR approach and its significance for contemporary scholarship. In A. Bletsas, & C. Beasley (Eds), Engaging with Carol Bacchi: Strategic interventions and exchanges. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press.
[11] Bosso, C. J. (1994). The contextual bases of problem definition. In D. A. Rochefort, & R. W. Cobb (Eds), The politics of problem definition: Shaping the policy agenda (pp. 182-203). Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
[12] Carelle, J. R. (2000). Foucault and religion: Spiritual corporality and political spirituality. London and New York: Routledge.
[13] Castel, R. (1994). “Problematization” as a mode of reading history. In J. Goldstein (Ed.), Foucault and the writing of history (pp. 237-252). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
[14] Clough, P. T. (2007). Notes towards a theory of affect-itself. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 7, 60-77.
[15] Deacon, R. (2000). Theory as practice: Foucault’s concept of problematization. Telos, 118, 127-142.
[16] Deacon, R. (2006). Michel Foucault on education: A preliminary theoretical overview. South African Journal of Education, 26, 177-187.
[17] Dean, M. (1999). Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society. London: Sage.
[18] De Goede, M. (2006). International political economy and the promises of poststructuralism. In M. de Goede (Ed.), International political economy and poststructural politics (pp. 1-20). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
[19] Deleuze, G. (1988). Foucault. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[20] Eveline, J. and Bacchi, C. (2010) Power, resistance and reflexive practice. In C. Bacchi, & J. Eveline (Eds), Mainstreaming politics: Gendering practices and feminist theory (pp. 139-161). Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press.
[21] Eribon, D. (1991). Michel Foucault. London: Faber and Faber.
[22] Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
[23] Flynn, T. R. (1985). Truth and subjectivation in the later Foucault. The Journal of Philosophy, 82, 531-540. doi:10.2307/2026360
[24] Flynn, T. R. (1989a). Foucault and historical nominalism. In H. A. Durfee, & D. F. T. Rodier (Eds), Phenomenology and beyond: The self and its language (pp. 134-147). Netherlands: Kluwer. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-1055-3_10
[25] Flynn, T. R. (1989b). Foucault and the politics of postmodernity. No?s, 23, 187-198. doi:10.2307/2215978
[26] Flynn, T. R. (2005). Foucault’s mapping of history. In G. Gutting (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Foucault (pp. 29-48, 2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[27] Foucault, M. (1969). Pamphlet submitted to Professors of the Collège de France, cited in D. Eribon (1991). Michel Foucault (pp. 214-216). B. Wing (Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[28] Foucault, M. (1972a). Histoire de la folie a l’age classique. Paris: Gallimard.
[29] Foucault, M. (1972b). The archaeology of knowledge [1969]. New York: Pantheon Books.
[30] Foucault, M. (1977). Language, counter-memory, practice: selected essays and interviews. In D. F. Bouchard (Ed.), D. F. Bouchard, & S. Simon (Trans.). Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
[31] Foucault, M. (1980a). The history of sexuality, Vol. I. An introduction. New York: Vintage Books.
[32] Foucault, M. (1980b). I’impossible prison: Recherches sur le système pénitentiare au XIXe siècle. In M. Perrot (Ed.), Paris: Seuil.
[33] Foucault, M. (1984). Polemics, politics and problematizations, based on an interview conducted by Paul Rabinow. In L. Davis. (Trans.), Essential works of Foucault (Vol. 1), Ethics, New York: New Press. URL (last checked 10 October 2009) http://foucault.info/foucault/interview.html
[34] Foucault, M. (1985a). Discourse and truth: The problematization of parrhesia. In J. Pearson (Ed.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University.
[35] Foucault, M. (1985b). Michel Foucault, une histoire de la vérité. Paris: Editions Syros.
[36] Foucault, M. (1986). The use of pleasure: The history of sexuality (Vol. 2). New York: Vintage.
[37] Foucault, M. (1988). The Concern for Truth. In L. D. Kritzman (Ed.) Michel Foucault: Politics, philosophy, culture. Interviews and other writings, 1977-1984 (pp.255-267). Trans. A Sheridan. New York: Routledge.
[38] Foucault, M. (1991a). Remarks on Marx: Conversations with Duccio Trombadori. In J. Goldstein and J. Cascaito (Eds. & Trans.), New York: Semiotext(e).
[39] Foucault, M. (1991b). Questions of method. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (pp. 73-86). Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
[40] Franchi, S. (2004). Review of “Fearless Speech”. Essays in Philosophy, 5. URL (last checked 10 October 2010) http://commons.pacificu.edu/eip/vol5/iss2/11/
[41] Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
[42] Garland, D. (2001). The culture of control: Crime and social order in contemporary society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[43] Gordon, C. (1991). Governmental rationality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (pp. 1-48). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[44] Gutting, G. (2008). Michel Foucault. In E. N. Zaita (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. (last checked 10 October 2011) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/
[45] Kaye, J., & Martin, P. (2000). Safeguards for research using large-scale DNA collections. British Medical Journal, 321, 1146-1149. doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7269.1146
[46] Koopman, C. (2007). Requiem for certainty: Deleuze on problematization (last checked 10 October 2011). http://cwkoopman.wordpress.com/category/deleuze/
[47] Law, J. (2004). After method: Mess in social science research. New York: Routledge.
[48] Law, J. (2008a). On sociology and STS. The Sociological Review, 56, 623-649. doi:10.1111/j.1467-954X.2008.00808.x
[49] Law, J. (2008b). Actor network theory and material semiotics. In B. S. Turner (Ed.), The new Blackwell companion to social theory (pp. 141-158, 3rd ed.). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
[50] Lazreg, M. (1988). Feminism and difference: The Perils of writing as a woman on women in Algeria. Feminist Issues, 14, 81-107.
[51] May, T. (2006). The philosophy of Michel Foucault. Chesham: Acumen.
[52] Martin, L. H., Gutman, H., & Hutton, P. H. (1988). Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
[53] Mol, A. (1999). Ontological politics: A word and some questions. In J. Law, & J. Hassard (Eds.), Actor network theory and after (pp. 74-89) Oxford & Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
[54] Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple: Ontology in medical practice. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
[55] Montero, M., & Sonn, C. C. (2009). Psychology of liberation: Theory and applications. New York: Springer.
[56] Mort, F., & Peters, R. (2005). Foucault recalled: Interview with Michel Foucault (conducted in 1979). New Formations, 10, 9-22.
[57] Narayan, U. (1997). Restoring history and politics to “Third-World Traditions”: Contrasting the colonialist stance and contemporary contestations of sati. In U. Narayan (Ed.), Dislocating cultures: Identities, traditions, and third-world feminism (pp. 41-81). New York: Routledge.
[58] Narayan, U. (2000). Essence of culture and a sense of history: A feminist critique of cultural essentialism. In U. Narayan, & S. Harding (Eds.), Decentering the center: Philosophy for a multicultural, postcolonial, and feminist world (pp. 80-100). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
[59] O’Farrell, C. (2005). Michel Foucault. London: Sage.
[60] Osborne, T. (2003). What is a problem? History of the Human Sciences, 16, 1-17. doi:10.1177/0952695103164001
[61] Oswick, C., Keenoy, T., Beverungen, A., Ellis, N., Sabelis, I., & Yberna, S. (2007). Discourse, practice, policy and organizing: Some opening comments. Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 27, 429- 432. doi:10.1108/01443330710835783
[62] Pálsson, G., & Rabinow, P. (2006). The Iceland controversy: Reflections on the transnational market of civic virtue. In A. Ong, & S. J. Collier (Eds.), Global assemblages: Technology, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems (pp. 91-104). London: Blackwell.
[63] Rabinow, P. (2003). Anthropos today: Reflections on modern equipment. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
[64] Rabinow, P. (2009). Foucault’s untimely struggle: Toward a form of spirituality. Theory, Culture & Society, 26, 25-44. doi:10.1177/0263276409347699
[65] Rose, N. S. (2000). Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought. (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
[66] Rose, N., & Miller, P. (1992). Political power beyond the state: Problematics of government. British Journal of Sociology, 43, 172-205. doi:10.2307/591464
[67] Rowse, T. (2009). The ontological politics of “closing the gaps”. Journal of Cultural Economy, 2, 33-48. doi:10.1080/17530350903063917
[68] Simon, J. K. (1971). A conversation with Michael Foucault. Partisan Review, 38, 192-210.
[69] Simpson, B. (2009). Pragmatism, Mead and the practice turn. Organization Studies, 30, 1329-1347. doi:10.1177/0170840609349861
[70] St. Pierre, E. A. (2006). Scientifically based research in education: Epistemology and ethics. Adult Education Quarterly, 56, 239-266. doi:10.1177/0741713606289025
[71] Veyne, P. (1997). Foucault revolutionizes history. In A. I. Davidson (Ed.), Foucault and his interlocutors (pp. 147-182). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[72] Walters, W. (2004). Secure borders, safe haven, domopolitics. Citizenship Studies, 8, 237-260. doi:10.1080/1362102042000256989

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.