• The Shadow: Alter-Visibility in an Empire of the Seen

    Author(s):
    John Welsh (see profile)
    Date:
    2015
    Group(s):
    Political Philosophy & Theory
    Subject(s):
    Political science, Sociology, Economics, Human geography, Psychoanalysis, Biopolitics
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Post-Fordism, Historical Capitlaism, Poststructuralism, Disclpinary power, Political theory, Social theory, Political economy, Psychoanalytic sociology
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/h5y8-p553
    Abstract:
    The article interrogates the concept of Multitude in capitalist society and challenges the simple notion of social exclusion as an operative force in contemporary social formations and their spatial dispositions. The Shadow will be offered as a spatial and psychosocial relational horizon of differentiation systemically inscribed into the social architecture, operating under a legitimating discourse of transparency politics. The concept succinctly characterizes the personal and social experiences of political opacity in twenty-first-century biopolitical capitalist society, and the exploitation of living labour by a topological apparatus of ‘alter-visibility’. The piece explores the emergence of various ‘Shadowlands’ in the social materiality generated by spatial technologies of political and social control. By assuming the juxtaposing archetype of the Trickster, and a dialectical politics opened up by the Shadow's technology of alter-visibility, the article argues for the potential realization of the Multitude concept out of a personal ethical praxis and counter-conduct based on the Trickster concept against the consigning and coding power of capitalist Empire and the spatio-temporal shadowlands that it generates. The psychosocial dialectical potential in the figure of the Trickster derives from its enantiodromic confrontation with the Shadow in a critical heterotopic politics of disaster, juxtaposition, and ‘schizophrenic’ rebellion.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    10.1080/1600910X.2015.1045426
    Publisher:
    Informa UK Limited
    Pub. Date:
    2015-9-22
    Journal:
    Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory
    Volume:
    17
    Issue:
    1
    Page Range:
    57 - 77
    ISSN:
    1600-910X,2159-9149
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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