I just finished reading Anthropos Today by Paul Rabinow. If you haven't read it, it's basically his latest book which sums up alot of theoretical stuff familiar to all of us students of Jim Faubion. He synthesizes Foucault and Weber, but also John Dewey and Blumenburg and a long list of other names. I suppose its the kind of thing for those who have already followed this line of theory to make interrelations of ideas and analytic concepts a bit more explicit, so it would be hard to explain it all here.
The most compelling questions that Rabinow suggests we pursue in our anthropological work deal with the level of problematization, a concept borrowed from Foucault. Citing Foucault, Rabinow states, “A ‘problematization…does not mean representation of a preexistent object nor the creation through discourse of an object that did not exist. It is the ensemble of discursive and nondiscursive practices that make something enter into the play of true and false and constitute it as an object of knowledge’…The reason that problematizations are problematic, not surprisingly, is that, something prior ‘must have happened to introduce uncertainty, a loss of familiarity; that loss, that uncertainty, is the result of difficulties in our previous way of understanding, acting, relating’” (2004: 18). This is similar to Weber’s ideal-type and its emergence and duration may last for centuries. It is also not the same as the episteme that Foucault develops in The Order of Things, though it exists nearly on the same level; the main difference is that problematization is not a buried logic or system of thought, it exists in the open as a space for knowledge emergence, development, and debate. Examples include, “the Greek problematization of pleasure and freedom or the modern problematization of life and governmentality” (2004: 55).
In addition to problematization, Rabinow explores apparatus and assemblage. An apparatus is a form “composed of heterogeneous elements that have been stabilized and set to work in multiple domains” (2004: 55). Examples include discipline or confession. An apparatus responds to parts of a larger problematization and may also last for a long period of time.
Between apparatus and problematization rests assemblage, “secondary matrices from within which apparatuses emerge and become stabilized or transformed. Assemblages stand in a dependent but contingent and unpredictable relationship to the grander problematizations…They are a distinctive type of experimental matrix of heterogeneous elements, techniques, and concepts” (2004: 56). As opposed to apparatus or problematization, they only last for decades, rather than centuries. Therefore, their emergence and existence is an event set within the context of existing problematizations and apparatus.
So, beginning from the level of problematization or responding to this level of analysis, we can examine assemblages such as the emergence of information access laws in terms of both abstract conceptualizations and concrete institutions, knowledge systems, and other objects. Similar to the manner in which Rabinow explores Enlightenment concepts of progress in relationship to molecular biology and bioethics, FOI engages with the Enlightenment too, but concerns itself more so with ideals of progress, truth, and democracy. Essentially, Rabinow wants to focus on big questions that get at the larger meaning of science, questions that require continual reformation as new technologies emerge and the possibilities of science and technology re-frame how we comprehend life. If we understand science in the frame of Enlightenment progress, then where are these scientific developments leading us? To a happier existence? A better world? And if not these things, will it lead us to the opposite? Rabinow strikes on the matter of civilizing and civilization, what differentiates modern society from the barbarous or backwards society? Even when discussions are not framed in such terms explicitly, they often return to such matters.
We might suppose that information access could raise similar-minded questions about democracy, its purpose, development, and proliferation: will more democracy make the world a better place? a happier place? a more secure place? But before we get to that, we might first question whether more openness and information access will bring about more democracy and then whether increased openness will make the world better, happier, and/or more secure? The articulation of information and democracy appears relatively new, a late 20th century development that emergent democracies such as Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe easily accepted. Openness is a new democratic norm, allowed for in the 1990’s by the re-structuring of Cold War-era security which had justified often excessive secrecy. FOI advocates called it the “decade of openness” and it seems that the norm continues to have a place in the post-9/11 security order as well, though possibly in a more precarious position.
Perhaps “democracy” is too limited or information access touches upon a number of other problematizations. Maybe democracy is better understood as an apparatus within the Enlightenment problematization? After all, capitalist concepts of free markets also endorse greater openness for more clarity within markets.
I recall an instance from fieldwork that was particularly instructive for myself and may inform this matter. I had a long discussion with a corruption expert, also a former member of the Solidarity resistance and wide-ranging intellectual. We explored the emergence of anti-corruption in terms of moral disgust of the socialist system during the 1980’s. Several days later, I spoke with another corruption expert who had not been part of Solidarity and straddles the line between intellectual and policymaker. He rejected the moral dimension of anti-corruption, explaining to me that the sole purpose of anti-corruption is political and economic development in Poland.
Development: this is the big picture question that has fueled anti-corruption initiatives in Poland and, in turn, information access. We might consider development as comparative, that in relationship with other countries, Poland is behind. Or, we might consider development as more universal, that Poland is not yet truly democratic or capitalist. The truth is both. And further, we can expect Poland to traverse its own path through development and towards its goals. All of these generalizations are accepted by the Polish experts or are the grounds for varying arguments about development and the post-socialist transition.
Former Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek brought these ideas together in an essay he wrote, “Freedom of Information (is) Fundamental.” In it, he laments the average citizen’s lack of information as a source of failure and disappointment. Oftentimes, citizens remain unaware of the opportunities they have missed out on. The source of blame rests, more often than not, with government institutions and its individual functionaries who fail to properly supply the Polish citizen with important information. Another effect of the lack of openness is corruption. “Bad fortunes for the future of Polish democracy,” Buzek writes, resulting in the, “curbing of the tempo of the development of economy and Polish civilization.”
Posted by michael at 22 lutego 2005 17:37