https://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc98634s
https://www.litphil.sinica.edu.tw/newsletter/118/118-129-131.pdf
「傅柯未刊稿及其研究」專輯導言 (黃冠閔, 2020)
http://lawdata.com.tw/tw/journal.aspx?no=833&pno=64462
What’s Foucault's ''Émergence deséquipements collectifs-État d'avancement des travaux''? What’s the significance of it? (ChatGPT, 2025-1-4)
Michel Foucault’s “Émergence des équipements collectifs – État d’avancement des travaux” (translated as “Emergence of Collective Equipments – State of Advancement of Works”) is a lesser-known text written in 1959 when Foucault was working at the Direction Générale des Équipements et Constructions in France. This report-like document reflects Foucault’s engagement with urban planning and architecture in the context of postwar reconstruction and modernization. While it might seem peripheral to his later philosophical works, it contains significant conceptual underpinnings that prefigure his later focus on space, power, and biopolitics.
Key Themes and Context
1. Urban Planning and “Collective Equipments”:
• “Collective equipments” refer to infrastructure and facilities that serve the public, such as schools, hospitals, transportation systems, and housing projects.
• The report examines how these “equipments” were designed, implemented, and distributed in postwar France, focusing on their role in organizing and managing social life.
2. Technocratic Governance:
• The text reflects Foucault’s early engagement with the intersection of technical expertise and governance.
• It analyzes how urban planning and the construction of public infrastructure serve as tools for managing populations and addressing issues like housing shortages and health crises.
3. Spatiality and Power:
• Although not yet developed into a full theoretical framework, this report hints at Foucault’s later focus on space as a mechanism of power.
• The design and distribution of collective equipments are not neutral but are shaped by political, economic, and social priorities, thus revealing early insights into the governing of space.
4. Modernization and Social Control:
• The report reflects broader postwar efforts in Europe to modernize societies through large-scale infrastructure projects, often justified by welfare and progress.
• Foucault critiques how these projects implicitly regulate and normalize social behaviors, a theme that would become central in his later works on discipline and biopolitics.
Significance of the Text
1. Early Exploration of Biopolitics:
• The report prefigures Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, where the state takes an active role in managing the life and well-being of populations through infrastructure, health systems, and urban design.
2. Foundation for Power and Space Analysis:
• The focus on “equipments” as tools for organizing social life anticipates his later interest in the spatial dimensions of power, which he develops in Discipline and Punish and Security, Territory, Population.
• Collective equipments can be seen as early examples of the materialization of disciplinary and governmental power.
3. Technological Governance and Rationality:
• Foucault’s analysis of how infrastructure projects embody certain rationalities of governance ties into his later critiques of governmentality, where states manage populations through a combination of technical expertise and normative regulation.
4. Influence on Urban and Architectural Theory:
• This text has gained attention in fields like urban studies and architecture, where Foucault’s ideas about space, control, and governance have been influential.
5. Historical Insight:
• The text is a historical artifact that provides insight into Foucault’s early career and intellectual trajectory before his major philosophical breakthroughs.
Conclusion
“Émergence des équipements collectifs – État d’avancement des travaux” is significant as an early work that reflects Foucault’s engagement with themes of space, governance, and the material organization of society. While it is not a philosophical treatise, it reveals the roots of his later theories of biopolitics, governmentality, and the relationship between power and space. It stands as a bridge between his early professional work and the intellectual concerns that defined his later career.
