治理术与地理学:研究述评与展望

治理术作为福柯后期研究的一个重要概念具有丰富的内涵,已被广泛用于西方地理学的研究。本文在福柯的著作和西方相关文献的基础上,梳理了治理术的概念,归纳了西方地理学对治理术的主要应用。福柯的治理术主要包含治理技术和治理理性两个向度;治理术的分析框架以生命政治、计算和治理目的为支柱;与这一分析框架相对应,西方地理学对治理术的应用集中在以下三个话题:族群与生命政治,领土与计算,认知/空间合理性和城市管治。治理术的相关概念和方法在解释中国的单位制度和户口制度、阶级斗争和空间非均衡发展、分税制和城市规划及加强中国地理学的理论化和学术贡献上具有重要意义。

GOVERNMENTALITY AND GEOGRAPHY: REVIEW AND PROSPECT

Governmentality is a concept devised by the French thinker Michel Foucault to describe the power relations in Europe in the modern period. As an important concept in Foucault's later academic career, governmentality has rich connotations and is widely applied in western human sciences. Foucault's work on governmentality has also been widely taken up across human geography. This paper proposes four major perspectives to interpret governmentality. This paper also summarizes three major analytical perspectives and typical applications of this concept: biopolitics, calculation and politics of truth. Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose (2006) define biopower as a discursive-practical "field comprised of more or less rationalized attempts to intervene upon the vital characteristics of human existence". The focus of biopolitics is population rather than individual body, the latter of which is the focus of disciplinary power. The issue of biopolitics is tied to the development of measures and statistical techniques: a population must be measured and monitored in order to be governed. The calculability suggested by the term ‘mathesis’ is fundamentally related to rationality and art of governing. Subjectivity and truth are another group of key words in Foucault's studies. To conclude, this paper reminds the geographers to be more critical and careful of the hidden power relations behind geographical knowledge in order to enhance the theorization and knowledge production in Chinese human geographical research.