The critique of mindfulness and the mindfulness of critique

paying attention to the politics of our selves with Foucault's analytic of governmentality

Edwin NG

pp. 135-152

in: Ronald E. Purser, David Forbes, Adam Burke (eds), Handbook of mindfulness, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

This chapter examines the analytic of governmentality drawn from Michel Foucault's work. It invites consideration of the analytical possibilities which might be developed through a twofold task: the critique of mindfulness and the mindfulness of critique. The chapter first unpacks Foucault's account of neoliberalism as a mode of governmentality that is directed at the production of the subjectivity of homo economicus. This will shed light on why mindfulness is so malleable and adaptable across diverse settings today. The chapter then connects Foucault's account of neoliberalism with his reevaluation of the ethical practices of spiritual self-cultivation in antiquity. This will clarify how an analytic of governmentality turns on an understanding of the subject as constituted by historically contingent practices, and invites an analysis of contemporary mindfulness as the emergent and contested outcome of techniques of domination and techniques of the self. A Foucauldian understanding of the subject is accompanied by an understanding of ethics as critical practice. By connecting Foucault's curiosity about neoliberalism with his curiosity about ethical self-cultivation, the chapter will propose some ways by which the practices of critique and mindfulness might reciprocally nourish one another as the critique of mindfulness and the mindfulness of critique. The chapter concludes with some reflections on how this ethos of critical mindfulness might relate to the challenges facing scholars and researchers of mindfulness working within the increasingly corporatized institution of the university, which is a key site and relay point for the production of knowledge on mindfulness in the contemporary world.

Cited authors

Foucault Michel