Foucault’s spatial combat Peter Johnson Received 2 April 2007; in revised form 31 October 2007; published online 26 March 2008 Abstract. Many diverse spatial features within Foucault’s historical studies have been analysed productively within Anglophone human geography. Although much of this work has tended to focus on Foucault’s mid to later projects, especially around issues of health, surveillance, governmentality, and sexuality, his earlier archaeological studies have also produced fruitful avenues of research.
Concentrating on the latter, and taking up Elden’s notion of Foucault’s use of space as a tool of analysis, I explore how Foucault’s intense study of modern literature, particularly Roussel and Blanchot, contributes to underlying modes of spatialisation that drive his study of the history of clinical medicine, as well as the complex explanation of his archaeological approach.
Following Deleuze, I argue that these spatialisations are both the instrument and the object of his studies. They generate devices and tactics for dismantling established methods of analysis and manifest the powerful, multiple effects of discourse, whilst remaining meticulously at the level of description. Restricted material: