Pointers

Arkeologi Foucault sebagai Archeology of Thoughts - bukan mencari tahu apa ataupun bagaimana pemikiran tertentu bisa terbentuk (konsekuensinya bisa mencari tahu secara deskriptif ataupun kepada pemikiran dari tokoh yang membentuk atau mencetuskan pemikiran tersebut), tetapi kepada apa saja yang membentuk kondisi yang kemudian menghasilkan pemikiran tersebut

Foucault: A Very Short Introduction - Archaeology

We will not be so much interested in, say, Hume or Darwin as in what made Hume or Darwin possible. This is the root of Foucault’s famous ‘marginalization of the subject’. It is not that he denies the reality or even the supreme ethical importance of the individual consciousness. But he thinks that individuals operate in a conceptual environment that determines and limits them in ways of which they cannot be aware.

Genealogi Foucault mengambil satu langkah maju dari pendekatan yang dilakukan oleh arkeologi di dalam menelaah sesuatu.

Foucault: A Very Short Introduction - Genealogy

(Talking about Archaeology of Knowledge’s four main categories of archaeological analysis) …However, the four key archaeological categories are here applied not just to language but to practices that go beyond mere linguistic expression to produce physical changes in their objects. Discipline and Punish is concerned, therefore, not just with the language (analysed by archaeology) through which we know the world, but with the power that changes the world.

Foucault: A Very Short Introduction - Genealogy

Foucault was sceptical of grand teleological narratives focused on such goals and proposed instead accounts based on many specific ‘little’ causes, operating independently of one another, with no overall outcome in view. On such an approach we might, for example, discuss not the ‘invention of printing’ but an entire complex of developments in the production and distribution of newspapers and magazines (new sorts of presses, styles of reporting, methods of making paper, subscription schemes, and so on) that would in turn have a wide and disparate range of social, economic, and political effects. Or, to cite an example from Foucault himself, in Discipline and Punish he shows how, among many other things, the invention of a new kind of rifle, more efficient ways of organizing the space of hospitals, and changes in the methods of teaching children penmanship all unwittingly contributed to the formation of a radically new system of social control.

A final discovery: that the objects of these diverse and specific causes are human bodies. The forces that drive our history do not so much operate on our thoughts, our social institutions, or even our environment as on our individual bodies. So, for example, punishment in the 18th century is a matter of violent assaults on the body: branding, dismemberment, execution, whereas in the 19th century it takes the apparently gentler but equally physical form of incarceration, ordered assemblies, and forced labour. Prisoners are subjected to a highly structured regimen designed to produce ‘docile bodies’. A Foucaultian genealogy, then, is a historical causal explanation that is material, multiple, and corporeal.

Dalam pemahamanku, metode analisa ini bisa diaplikasikan tidak hanya kepada thoughts atau pemikiran, tetapi juga fenomena - apa yang aku lakukan terhadap analisis belajar bahasa asing berkutat kepada hal seperti ini.


Kalau begitu, bagaimana analisis seperti ini bisa dikaitkan dengan diplomasi digital, atau yang berkaitan dengan utilisasi media digital oleh masyarakat sehari-hari, alih-alih aktor tingkat negara?

SAFEnet

The Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet) was established on 27 June 2013 in line with the increasing criminalisation of expression in the digital arena in Southeast Asia. From our initial activities of monitoring, advocacy, and solidarity on freedom of expression on the Internet, since 2018 SAFEnet has expanded its work to defend digital rights, including the right to Internet access, the right to freely express ourselves, and the right to safety in digital spaces.

Pertanyaan paling sederhana yang terbesit adalah, “apa pentingnya keberadaan kelompok seperti SAFEnet di Asia Tenggara?“. Jawaban singkatnya bisa dibilang terasa obvious: untuk melindungi hak dan kebebasan aktivitas di dunia maya, seperti yang disebutkan di dalam aktivitas SAFEnet itu sendiri.

Pertanyaan paling sederhana yang terbesit adalah, “apa pentingnya keberadaan kelompok seperti SAFEnet di Asia Tenggara?“. Jawaban singkatnya bisa dibilang terasa obvious: untuk melindungi hak dan kebebasan aktivitas di dunia maya, seperti yang disebutkan di dalam aktivitas SAFEnet itu sendiri.

Dalam hal ini, arkeologi dan genealogi terkait topik ini bisa masuk lewat pertanyaan yang lebih mendasar: kenapa hal ini perlu ada?

Satu hal yang masih perlu diperhatikan adalah mencari atau menjabarkan jembatan dari diplomasi digital, yang secara mentah-mentah berurusan dengan aktor tingkat negara ataupun organisasional, dengan pengaruhnya kepada masyarakat umum.


Foucault mengidentifikasi dua manifestasi Kuasa: Yuridis dan Disipliner.

Gerd Christensen - Three concepts of power: Foucault, Bourdieu, and Habermas - Foucault: Disciplinary power and discourse

The juridical model is characterized by the following: (1) power is possessed (by individuals, a social class, the citizens etc.), (2) power flows from a central source from the top to the bottom (from the juridical system, the economy, the state etc.), and (3) when power is exercised, it is primarily repressive (e.g., as a ban supported by sanctions). In other words, the juridical model is by far equal to the conceptualization of power that lies in the Western philosophy of consciousness as well as in dialectical materialism—and not least in our everyday conceptualization of power.

The disciplinary model relates to a completely different form of power, a generative power, which in many ways can be claimed to be negatively defined in relation to the juridicial model. It is thus characterized by the following: (1) power is exercised rather than possessed, that is, it consists of action upon acctions, (2) power is analyzed as something that can descend from the bottom and move upwards, that is, it is not conditioned by the sovereign but by discourse, and (3) power is not primarily repressive but productive, that is , it produces the subjects who submitted to their own subjectivity.

Dalam hal ini, analisis terhadap apa yang mengancam freedom of expression di Indonesia bisa dilihat sebagai upaya mempertahankan status quo di masa setelah reformasi/revolusi - dalam upaya menjaga stabilitas (ini bisa diganti ke istilah yang lebih spesifik lagi), langkah disipliner dilakukan kepada mereka yang berpotensi merusak stabilitas tersebut. Model kuasa Foucault bisa menjelaskan kenapa, pada akhirnya, bukan pemegang kekuasaan di tingkat paling tinggi (pemerintah, misalnya, sebagai pihak yang paling memiliki kepentingan terhadap stabilitas tersebut) yang berusaha menjaga status tersebut, tetapi malah pemegang kekuasaan lain (i.e. universitas ataupun instansi kerja).