Governing ‘others’
The (m)other as subject in the US family planning discourses
Mihnea Panu | Wilfried Laurier University
This paper argues that for contemporary liberalism to govern legitimately, governmental discourses have to create certain identities as ‘other’, that is, as the polar opposite of the good, normal citizen. To fix those identities as a-relational ‘substances’ in the universal language of law and science. And to use those ‘substances’ in games of inclusion/exclusion that simulate non-intervention while safeguarding the liberal ‘will to govern’. Centrally, the identities posited as ‘other’ are those the contemporary governmental discourses also posit as ‘particular’: the poor, the racialised and the gendered. Thus, it is argued that those governmental practices depend in equal measures on the simultaneously individualizing and totalising nature of governmental bio-power, on the particular/universal liberal tension and on the essentialising nature of scientific truths. Those points are illustrated by the US national family planning strategy’s construction of reality in terms of a ‘pathological mother’, a (m)other.
Published online: 15 July 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.9.2.05pan
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.9.2.05pan
References
Badinter, Elisabeth.
Barry, Andrew, Osborne, Thomas and Rose, Nikolas
Brown, Wendy.
Burchell, Graham, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller
Burchell, Graham.
Dean, Mitchell.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Felix.
Foucault, Michel
Foucault, Michel.
Foucault Michel
Foucault, Michel
Fraser, Nancy.
Fraser, Nancy, and Gordon, Linda.
Gordon, Colin.
Gordon, Linda.
Handler, Joel F, and Hasenfeld, Yeheskel
Henshaw, Stanley K.
Hindess, Barry
Hindess, Barry.
Mitchell, Timothy
Kost, Kathryn, Landry, David, and Darroch, Jaqueline E.
Laclau, Ernesto, and Mouffe, Chantal
Laclau, Ernesto, and Mouffe, Chantal.
Ladd-Taylor, Molly, and Umansky, Lauri
Latour, Bruno.
Patterson, James T.
Procacci, Giovanna.
PRWORA
1996: Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (H.R. 3734) http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=104_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ193.104.pdf. (Accessed October 13, 2006).
Rose, Nikolas.
Rose, Nikolas, and Miller, Peter.
Ruhl, Leanne.
Santelli, John, Rochat, Roger, Hatfield-Timajchy, Kendra, Gilbert, Brenda G., Curtis, Kathryn, Cabral, Rebecca, Hirsch, Jennifer S., Schieve, Laura
Schram, Sanford.
Skocpol, Theda.
US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Striley, Katie Margavio & Kimberly Field-Springer
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.