Foucault on Theorizing Specificity

Abstract

Philo has brought Foucault's early, ‘archaeological’ work to the attention of human geographers as a possible source of help in theorizing specificity. By contrast, in this paper the archaeological project is portrayed as an illuminating failure which holds valuable lessons for geographers. The archaeological period is placed in the context of Foucault's career, and then the Archaeology of Knowledge is situated as the arena for Foucault's most instructive encounters with the problems of necessity, contingency, and human subjectivity. Although Foucault's profound theoretical modesty does not solve the problem of how to theorize specificity, it does suggest that we make significant adjustments in our own attempts to do so. The implications of the argument are given a test drive through a brief reading of recent work by Thrift, after which a recasting of the notion of responsibility is put forward as a means of beginning to deal more bravely with poststrueturalism.