Rationalization and concealment of violence in American responses to 9/11: Orientalism(s) in a state of exception

• Published in: Journal of postcolonial writing Vol. 48; no. 3; pp. 241 - 251
• Main Author: Yamaguchi, Kenichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 01.07.2012
• Subjects: democracy; discipline; Orientalism; state of exception; violence
• ISSN: 1744-9855; 1744-9863
• DOI: 10.1080/17449855.2012.678708

This paper aims to contribute to the growing efforts to articulate the governance of violence in the post-9/11 context through a close reading of Michel Foucault's and Giorgio Agamben's work. For Foucault, the pre-modern form of levying-on-violence lost its "legitimate" power, and violence became a hidden part of our society. Edward Said applied a Foucauldian framework in Orientalism to articulate its discursive episteme as well as the disciplining processes of the Oriental subjects. Yet postcolonial criticism has not moved forward from the polemics of Said's alleged "misuse" of Foucault's framework. This paper draws attention to the relevance of Foucault's work on violence to Orientalism through a renewed reading of Agamben's discussion on the state of exception. Agamben's contention that western law contains certain interpretative/anomic elements poses a curious challenge to a Foucauldian analysis. This essay will pay particular attention to the intricacies of post-9/11 tactics of governing violence, while extending the conceptual coordinates of Foucault's and Agamben's work to a wider understanding of the hidden, often contradicting gap between modern discourses of "democracy", violence and the multiplicities of Othering and Orientalism.