My favorite Foucauldian
Underneath your clothes, there’s an endless story
— Shakira
This is probably a fairly obvious point, but not one I’ve seen developed anywhere. One of the ways in which Agamben follows Foucault (and one of the places it’s useful to keep Foucault in mind if one doesn’t want to reduce Agamben to liberal platitudes) is the idea of the body as always wrapped up in discourse. Of course, this plays out slightly differently in Agamben, where the biological body, ζωη, is specifically an effect of politics, however, they both share a rejection of biology, which I think is important in understanding the scattered hints in Agamben about how we might remedy the disaster created by the exclusion of the biological body from politics; it certainly won’t be by re-including the biological in politics (I imagine if I had read The Open, I might have more to say about this).
This post inspired by Shakira – “Hips Don’t Lie” [MP3], which also features some remarkably ill advised lines from Wyclef: “refugees run the seas ’cause we own our own boats.” Erm, not so much, surely.
4 comments
Leave a comment
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Ah, Shakira lyrics… Always such inspiring words. Like, for instance: “To buy more thongs / And write more happy songs / Always takes a little help from someone.” Never a truer word spoken….
Maybe you could argue that Shakira and Wyclef are engaging in a rejection of the body as definable purely in terms of western biology, and are instead embracing a more fluid interpretation of the body as a construct that can incorporate aspects of myth and zoomorphism. I refer you to the lines: “Oh boy, I can see your body moving / Half animal, half manâ€?. A post-colonial rejection of the dominance/subordination relationship set up between western ’science’ and non-western ‘myth’, through an embracing of alternative understandings of the body?
She also seems to be implying throughout “My hips don’t lieâ€? that her body has an agency of its own, separate from her mind – certainly the implication is that it is her moving body, separate from “herselfâ€?, which has caused Wyclef to become attracted to her. Even to the point of making him want to speak Spanish. I would also like to ask Levi-Strauss what he thought about the line “Reading the signs of my bodyâ€?, but he’s a little old these days and it might upset him.
I think my recent ‘history of anthropological thought’ reading course could have benefited from analysing Shakira songs from the perspective of each of the major thinkers. Maybe I’ll suggest it for next time.
Comment by Moll @ 3/8/2006 3:43 pm
Well, that’s why she’s my favorite Foucauldian. Although it does occour to me that “my hips don’t lie” might actually be positing the body as some kind of truth in opposition to discourse, which Foucault wouldn’t have had any truck with. The “underneath” of “underneath your clothes” might also carry the same implication, which would be a shame.
I also wonder if I haven’t misread Wyclef’s line. Maybe he’s not talking about how things are, but putting forward a kind of refugee utopia, which I would totally be down with. Sort of like The Raft from Snow Crash, although hopefully without the Scientology-esque element.
Comment by Tim @ 3/9/2006 6:32 pm
Wyclef was a member of the Fugees (short for Refugees) and often makes references to “Refugees” or the “Refugee Camp”. So the quote likely refers to members of his crew, not actual refugees.
Comment by claudius @ 4/1/2006 7:34 pm
i like that song hips dont lie.
you disagree; we fight.
Comment by madison @ 4/18/2006 9:43 am