South Asian Governmentalities Introducing South Asian Governmentalities <Deana Heath and Stephen Legg I write things which seem usable. In a word, usable in a different way, by different people, in different countries in certain cases. Thus, if I analyse something such as madness or power and that serves some purpose, then that's enough, that's why I write. If someone uses what I write differently then that's not disagreeable to me, and even if he [sic] uses it in another context for something else, then I am quite happy. (Foucault 1978 [2013], 111 emphasis added) In his now classic lecture at the Collège de France on February 1, 1978, Foucault examined governmentality as a type of power, discussed the pre-eminence of governmental power over time, and analysed the governmentalisation of the state. He also outlined what he saw as three main types of government, which were related to different registers: that of self-government, which was bound up with morality; that of governing a family, which was a matter of economy; and that of ruling the state, which was a political concern (Foucault 2007, 94). All of these encompassed what Foucault termed 'governmentality'. A form of power ascendant in Europe beginning in the sixteenth century, though with much older antecedents, governmentality emerged in apparatuses that combined sovereign, disciplinary and governmental power, each of which in isolation had their own ends: for sovereignty, submission to the law; for discipline, to normalise the behaviour of individuals; and for government to employ tactics that alter individual behaviour in order to manage populations (Foucault, 98-99). While there has been a tendency among Foucauldian scholars to examine each of these forms of power in isolation, as Foucault made clear in his Security, Territory, 1 1
South Asian Governmentalities Population lecture series (2007), it was instead possible to 'speak of a sovereign governmentality, a disciplinary governmentality or equally a governmentality that was dominated by the new dispositif of power with which that year's lectures were concerned, security' (Brown 2014, 7-8). Enacted through institutions (such as the family or school), discourses (such as medicine or criminal justice), and procedures and analyses (such as surveys and statistics), the aim of governmentality is to maintain a healthy and productive population. Although Foucault analysed many facets of what he termed 'modern' power over the course of his writings and lecture series - not all of which, notably, he tied effectively together (Elden 2016; Dean 2013; also Heath, this volume) - governmentality remained the central focus of his later work, and came to include a focus on conduct, liberalism, truth- telling, and the subject of critique (Foucault 2008). Scholars of South Asia have, for over 30 years, been at the forefront of global efforts to test and apply Foucault's research to new places and periods. This volume aims to further broaden the debate on governmentality in South Asia through, in part, a critical engagement with the lecture series that Foucault gave at the Collège de France from 1971 until his death in 1984.