Genealogy and Political Struggles

Eli B. Lichtenstein (Lewis & Clark College)

What is the relevance of history to emancipatory struggles in the present? This paper draws on Michel Foucault to explain how genealogy–a philosophical mode of historical investigation–can contribute to contemporary struggles against violence and domination. Whereas philosophers have claimed that genealogy must analyze the past from a neutral perspective, I argue instead for a pragmatic conception of genealogy, according to which genealogy borrows normative commitments from agents already involved in political struggles. On the basis of such commitments, genealogy seeks to refine agents’ understandings of political problems, by demonstrating the link between their immediate normative demands and broader structures and power relations. To provide an example, I explain how recently published lectures by Foucault broaden critiques of penal power by establishing the functional role of prisons and policing in modern capitalism.