In response to Mike:
I am sure many will agree about the work of Nikolas Rose and Mitchell Dean.
Interestingly, both wrote on welfare and social policy historically in the
1980s/early 90s (another key reference was Frank Mort, Dangerous
Sexualities), and their work was influential amongst some historical
geographers who were working on madness, sexuality, regulation and
government at that time - eg Chris Philo, Miles Ogborn, Matt Hannah, etc.
Incidentally, in our accounting of this work, we ought to be careful not to
restrict ourselves to the English-speaking world. There are a lot of
geographers who have worked with Foucaultian ideas beyond the Anglo world,
Herodote of course included. Paul Claval wrote a book on Espace et Pouvoir
in 1978, Claude Raffestin wrote an important political geography text (Pour
une geographie du pouvoir) in 1980 which was ahead of its time, Yves Lacoste
wrote on geographical knowledge as a form of warfare in the 1970s, and so
on.
I am not suggesting that we forget Foucault, to coin a phrase, but rather
that we should remember him more carefully and completely - which includes
pondering how geographers around the world have engaged constructively and
critically with his concepts and writings.
Felix Driver
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