Chapter Two
Theoretical Grounds: the Question of Historical Continuity and Its correlation with History, Identity, and Biopolitics
To understand the problem of historical continuity, we should not confine our studies to history alone but have to emphasize such issues as identity in diasporic food culture and biopolitics. The questions of history, identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture, and biopolitics involve the interrelationship among the past, the present, and the future. Traditionally, the idea of historical continuity focuses on temporal continuation and causality. In this thesis, I attempt to challenge this assumption by exploring the possibility of destabilizing the linear idea of history in the light of re-reading history, identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture, and biopolitics. This theoretic reconsideration will be illustrated by Smith’s metaphorization of the tooth image that Smith employs to indicate the ideas of legacies, identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture, and biopolitical aspects so as to question the legitimacy of historical continuity. Specifically, teeth dramatize the question of historical continuity and that of her fictional characters’
intention to pursue a fixed and singular root in the past. This hypothesis can be
supported by the arguments of a couple of theorists. First, I argue that in exploring
Nietzsche’s idea of the random nature of history, Smith uses the tooth image to allude
to the problematic conception of legacies. Second, I explore the reciprocal interaction
between white Britons and post-war immigrants in diasporic food culture and
diasproic food restaurants. In this section, the heterogeneity of identity will be
observed in diasporic food culture and the idea of ethnic food (in terms of their
association with teeth). Third, biopolitical control and its possible consequences will
be delineated as the governmental control over the human body through bodily,
scientific, and moral disciplines.
I. History
In Nietzsche’s two works on the contingency of history—The Use and Abuse of History and the third part of Thus Spake Zarathustra, I read the contingency of
history and relate it to Smith’s various exploration of the implication of teeth in White Teeth.
1Nietzsche clarifies the notion that historical legacies are not so much a linear as a random process. Thus, the idea of restoring a singular root (cultural heritage) in the past is problematic. Nevertheless, prior to further reading of Nietzsche’s idea, this thesis attempts to delineate the interrelation between the image of teeth and historical legacies.
The image of teeth entails historical legacies in two major senses—the manifestation and repudiation of parental influence. On the one hand, it typifies the affinity between parents and children. Biologically, teething in children implies parental genetic legacies. Stephen J. Moss points out the correlation between a child’s teeth and his/her mother’s intake of nutrients such as calcium, phosphorous, and vitamins in the bloodstreams (18). Indeed, teeth address historical inheritance inasmuch as they “are already beginning to form and to be recognizable” about three months after conception (Moss 17). The biological phenomenon offers a regular pattern. According to Moss, the emergence of teeth in a newborn baby always progresses as follows: central and lateral incisors, canines, and the first and second molars of the upper and lower teeth (43). The timetable of teething is not just a characteristic of human feature; rather, it reveals the pre-supposed connection between a child and his/her parents. Roger Lewin shares with Moss’ observation of historical legacies from an anthropological perspective. For him, teeth stand as a marker of human evolution because historical legacies from ape, through
1
Throughout my thesis, The Use and Abuse of History is abbreviated as UAH; likewise, Thus Spake
Zarathustra is abbreviated as TSZ.australopitchecus, to homo sapiens, are undeniable (Lewin 116-17).
On the other hand, the image of teeth implies the denial or revision of historical legacies. In his introduction of the affinity between parents and children, Moss reminds his readers of the unpredictable aspect of teething. While it is true that parental nutrition and genes impact the condition of a child’s teeth, inheritance alone does not guarantee owning clean white teeth. According to Moss, the fate of teeth is an unknown (25). Besides biological legacies, many factors determine the formation of occlusion or malocclusion of a child. The unpredictable nature of a child’s teething reflects the adaptation of the child to his/her environment and life style. In fact, it is often natural and logical that children differ from their parents and revise their historical legacies. Lewin finds this particularly true in the changing feature of human teeth from apes to modern human beings. In studying their contrast, Lewin clearly notes that “modern humans carry a thick enamel coat on their teeth, whereas the African apes exhibit thin enamel . . .” (119). The different thickness of enamel layer symbolizes the “trend toward a more effective grinding adaptation” (Lewin 117).
Accordingly, it can be inferred that the image of teeth becomes the paradoxical; in other words, it is simultaneously the manifestation and interrogation of historical legacies.
Based on Nietzsche’s theorization in UAH and TSZ, the question of historical
legacies can be interpreted as the interrogation of historical continuity. First, I read
Nietzsche’s question of reading history in a causal and scientific way in UAH. Second,
the rejection of linear temporality is reflected through his later manifestation of
history as the assemblage of chances from gods’ dice-casting gesture in TSZ. The
recognition of chances in history, in turn, explains the becoming nature of history,
which Nietzsche terms as eternal return. It is hoped that the ensuing discussion of his
two works may pave the way for my proposition that the plurality of roots (cultural
heritages) is the past that forms the present and future moment, and thereby helps elucidate this sense of plurality in the context of questioning historical continuity.
The following two sections will briefly epitomize and analyze some important concepts in UAH. First, the question of historical continuity will be discussed.
Nietzsche contends that the study of history should not be premised on the method of using causation to realize temporality. He calls attention to the “the unhistorical”
aspect of life to supplant the overestimation of “the historical” sense, which relies on the accumulated knowledge of causation. Second, instead of reading history in a logical way such as the two types of historical understanding—monumental history and antiquarian history, Nietzsche manifests how one should “break up” and “apply”
the past simultaneously so as to deal with his/her connection to the influence of inheritance and the issue of singular/plural roots from the perspective of critical history. In this system, history consists of “subjective” raptures and injustices and this assertion seems an appropriate method for us to depart from the idea of historical inheritance and reject the singularity of root and cultural heritage.
In terms of the contingent nature of history, Nietzsche’s conceptualization of history restores the diverse and unclassified threads of temporality whose existence is subject to disavowing acts of traditional historians. Traditional historians offer a linear and causal historical explanation of temporality in order to associate the present moment with the past and insist that the future is the consequence of the present.
Nietzsche repudiates this scientific and causal viewpoint and dismisses it as an overemphasis on the “historical sense” of history (UAH 7). For him, these historians falsely employ the “superhistorical” standpoint to regard history as a linear succession and continuation and thus believe that the future is hopeless in the sense that it is the repletion of the same (Nietzsche, UAH 10). He urges his readers to notice the
“unhistorical” sense of history instead—“the power, the art, of forgetting and of
drawing a limited horizon round oneself” (UAH 69). In this reading, history exerts its life-giving influence (Nietzsche, UAH 12); Nietzsche hereby defines “life” as “the expression of madness, injustice, blind passion, and the earthly and darkened horizon that was the source of its power for history” (Nietzsche, UAH 11). In other words, history should not be an instrument of manipulation for disregarding the dark side of the course of universe (Nietzsche, UAH 12). Instead, it is the aspect of “life” worthy of critical attention. Reading history in an unhistorical sense makes one aware of the different threads of history and unearths the contingency of temporality.
Although Nietzsche encourages the unhistorical reading of history, he does not forsake the historical sense altogether. Rather, he invites his readers to know the right time to remember, and “instinctively see when it is necessary to feel historically and unhistorically” (UAH 8). Nietzsche maintains “that the unhistorical and the historical are equally necessary to the health of an individual, a community, and a system of culture” though feeling unhistorically, in this sense, is the fundamental principle of it (Nietzsche, UAH 8). His remark aims to remedy the overemphasis on historical sense when reading history.
The living man renders history in three ways—monumental history, antiquarian history, and critical history (Nietzsche, UAH 12). Through these approaches, Nietzsche thoroughly illustrates how people use and misuse the interrelationship among the past, the present, and the future. Particularly in the third approach, he manifests how man should “break up” and “apply” the past simultaneously so as to deal with his/her connection to the influence of inheritance and the issue of singular/plural roots (UAH 21).
The perspective of monumental history emphasizes the linearity of history, in
which the past is always valued most. It serves as an “ideal” model for man in the
present moment. In this sense, “the great thing existed and was therefore possible, and
so may be possible again” (UAH 14). There is a cause-and-effect line running through the past, the present, and the future. Hereby is the implication that with the perspective of monumental history, man manipulates the public’s respect for the past to suit his/her need by reproducing the “greatness” of the past in the present.
Nietzsche alerts his readers against the idea of monumental history—the impact of
“imitation of the past” on the ages (UAH 15). In effect, people inclined toward monumental history emphasize the continuation of history so that in their thinking the present is always affected by the past. Monumental history, Nietzsche observes, is
“the cloak under which their hatred of present power and greatness masquerades as an extreme admiration of the past” so that the contemporary art is deemed trivial under this thinking (Nietzsche, UAH 17). Foucault observes that Nietzsche’s renunciation embodies his parody of monumental history and that this approach to history opposes the reality of the present and convinces people of the illusion that it is possible for them to search for great model figures from the past (Language, Counter-memory, Practice 161). By so doing, the past is romanticized and its influence on the present
and the future is exaggerated.
The second perspective of antiquarian history is in fact the continuation of
romanticizing the past. However, the difference is that antiquarian history highlights
past events more and denies present and future historical moments while in
monumental history, the present and the future are continuation of the past. Moreover,
man holding the approach of antiquarian history “rests content with the traditional and
venerable, and “undervalues the present growth” (Nietzsche, UAH 18, 20); everything
associated with “the spirit of his house, the family, and the city” becomes his root
(rootedness) (Nietzsche, UAH 18). This “feeling” of sticking to his “root of a tree [his
family tree]” reveals human reverence for the inheritance from his forebears and the
customs they rely on (Nietzsche, UAH 19). Nietzsche calls our attention to the danger
of this reliance—“mummy[ing]” the family root and inheritance, and of the subsequent obstruction to the present growth of man himself (UAH 20). Foucault agrees with Nietzsche’s warning and asserts that the real purpose of history is “not to discover the roots of our identity but to commit itself to its dissipation” (Language, Counter-Memory, Practice 162).
Third, among the three approaches of understanding history, Nietzsche underscores critical history most. The perspective of critical history simultaneously calls for a break from and the application of the past. “Every past is worth condemning,” proclaims Nietzsche (UAH 21). However, in his superfluous denial of the past, he also recognizes that unjust and dim mortal affairs in life drive history as well (UAH 21). Nietzsche offers a revised stance on this perspective, arguing that although man cannot escape the influence of the past, s/he can at least revise it. On the one hand, men “are merely the resultant of their [the forebears’] errors, passions, and crimes; it is impossible to shake off this chain. Though we condemn the errors and think we have escaped them, we cannot escape the fact that we spring from them”
(Nietzsche, UAH 21). On the other hand, man springs from the past and can overcome the past. After all, “the knowledge of the past is desired only for the service of the future and the present, not to weaken the present or undermine a living future”
(Nietzsche, UAH 22). Thus, the past is neither the foundation for the “imitation” of greatness as monumental history pursues nor the dominant “root” as antiquarian history reckons. Instead, the past includes inherent injustice and urges its destruction.
This awareness does not necessarily indicate that the past should be discarded and
trodden under foot by the present and the future. On the contrary, the chain of
temporality is sustained based on this inclusion, except that it should be read as
contingent, one that allows man to strive for a present and future life without being
tied to an embellished and singular root in the past. Nietzsche compares this approach
to a knife which is put to the embellished root and to make the “pieties trodden under foot” (UAH 21). Foucault observes that Nietzsche discusses the critical use of history in its “just treatment of the past, its decisive cutting of the roots, . . . [and most important of all], its liberation of man by presenting him with other origins than those in which he prefers to see himself” (Language, Counter-Memory, Practice 164). By doing so, Nietzsche suggests a possibility of avoiding the restraint of the past; that is, the “inheritance” of the past and thereby opening up man’s “plastic power” to “heal the wounds” of the past, and shaping his present and future moment (UAH 7, 69).
Nietzsche’s contemplation on critical history questions the linearity of history and renounces the delusion of searching for a singular root for man. He regards the randomness of history as a way to break from the control of legacies and believes that
“only strong personalities can endure history; the weak are extinguished by it” (UAH 32). What he is emphasizing in this phrase is not so much a fascist statement as an affirmation of the freedom to create possibilities in the context of questioning historical continuity.
In UAH, Nietzsche’s perspective on history elucidates the contingent temporality of history. Yet, in terms of historical legacies constraint, it remains unclear how historical contingency is operated. In the second part, Nietzsche offers two possible explanations to this operation in his two central ideas in TSZ—disruption of
“rationality” in the dice-casting metaphor and the concept of eternal return. The
former dice-casting metaphor demonstrates how chance characterizes history. This
manifestation disrupts the clear boundary between “good and evil” values and
belittles the “virtues” that is fabricated within. Meanwhile, it also liberates lay people
from the irreversible legacies from their forebears. The latter claim defines the
becoming nature of temporality by regarding each historical moment as a brand-new
combination of “forces [active and reactive forces]” (Deleuze 52).
2His concept of eternal return emphasizes the return of the difference, not of the same; therefore, the present/future of history is always in a flux and remains free from the constraint of the past.
In TSZ, Nietzsche uses Zarathustra to characterize the haphazard nature of history. Most interestingly, the chance of history is closely linked to the dice-casting gesture from divine power. When Zarathustra travels at sea, what he envisions is
“uncertain seas,” in which “chance flattereth” him (Nietzsche, TSZ 159). “Hazard,” he reckons, “is the oldest nobility in the world . . . that gave I back to all things; I emancipated them from bondage under purpose” (Nietzsche, TSZ 161). Zarathustra calls for a “new nobility” and maintains that “that is just divinity, that there are Gods, but no God” (Nietzsche, TSZ 197). Hereby, he employs the plurality of “Gods” to address the absurdity of expecting an all-empowering God who urges man to unreservedly follow the legacy of “his grandfathers” and to believe in the “natural”
connection between himself and his forebears.
Zarathustra further links those plural Gods to the composition of history. In his monologue, he reveals that history is the random result of Gods’ dice-casting gestures.
There are two sides of the dice-throws for those dice-players—“the dice that is thrown (onto the table of the earth) and the dice that falls back (onto the table of the sky)”
(Deleuze 25). Nietzsche, through the voice of Zarathustra, first illustrates the random temporality on the earth. On this plane, history is produced through the dice-playing among Gods who even allow Zarathustra himself to participate, and that it is the participation that makes the “earth [the history]” quake and rupture, and snort forth five-streams” (Nietzsche, TSZ 223). Nietzsche’s literary illumination of “quake,”
2
Gilles Deleuze sees Nietzsche's idea of eternal return as the “synthesis of forces,” which includes
both active and reactive forces. I choose not to consider the meaning of them but to stress the fact that
eternal return is the return of the different, not of the same.
“rupture,” and “snort,” reveals the haphazard nature that characterizes history. This attention to history on the earthly plane can also be discerned at the table of the sky onto which the dice that falls back. In the section “Before Sunrise,” Nietzsche employs Zarathustra to portray the site of the sky where history is produced by divine players:
That thou [the table of the sky] art to me a dancing-floor for divine chances, that thou art to me a table of the Gods, for divine dice and dice-players. (TSZ 162)
The table of the sky (in Zarathustra’s term, the heaven), becomes an experience of blessing understanding of its haphazard essence which prevails over the perspective of linear temporality; it is “the heaven of chance, the heaven of innocence, the heaven of hazard, [and] the heaven of wantonness” (Nietzsche, TSZ 161). Nietzsche, through the voice of Zarathustra, characterizes “freedom and celestial serenity” in this dice-casting metaphor. In effect, this leads him to consider the substantiality of questioning the idea of “rationality” and “virtues” (Nietzsche, TSZ 162). For example, Zarathustra puts “rationality” and “virtues” in bracket inasmuch as they are the byproducts of the linear temporality. Indeed, historians ignore the numerous and invisible interstices inside history; and by degrees, “rationality” and “virtues” are manipulated to tell people what is right and what is wrong for them. However, Nietzsche illustrates the “impossibility” of rationality because wisdom itself is always in a “scattered” state (TSZ 162). “[A] little reason” represents only the early stage of wisdom and then becomes “mixed in all things” (Nietzsche, TSZ 162). Therefore, reason itself, the prototype of rationality, prefers to “dance on the feet of chance”
(Nietzsche, TSZ 162).
Following this suggestion, Nietzsche delineates the impossibility of “virtues.”
In the section “The Bedwarfing Virtue,” Nietzsche criticizes the legitimacy of “virtue”
through the description of Zarathustra’s return to human society. In Zarathustra’s journey back to the human world and the continent, he finds a “small world,” where man blindly pursues the happiness in “virtues” (Nietzsche, TSZ 164). For Zarathustra, this tendency is problematic because “virtue for them [human beings] is what maketh modest and tame: therewith have they made the wolf a dog, and man himself man’s best domestic animal” (Nietzsche, TSZ 165). Hereby, Zarathustra aligns virtue with
“cowardice,” which serves only to domesticate human beings (Nietzsche, TSZ 165).
Zarathustra repudiates the connotation of virtue, specifically, submission, and instead stresses the freedom of the individual will. With this, the boundary between the
“good” and “evil” should be reconsidered (Nietzsche, TSZ 189). Zarathustra notes that man creates the unnecessary demarcation between “good” and “evil,” and thus makes himself “hard to bear” (Nietzsche, TSZ 188). In the section “Old and New Tables,”
Zarathustra further explicates the illusion of “good” and “evil”:
O my brethren, is not everything at present in flux? . . . . Who would still hold on to good and evil? . . . . There is an old illusion it is called good and evil. (Nietzsche, TSZ 196)
In this passage, Nietzsche aptly removes the cloak of virtue and successfully relates historical formation; that is, everything at present is in a flux subject to the aforementioned changes and mutations.
Furthermore, through the dice-casting metaphor Nietzsche introduces a potential power of liberation from history. His affirmation of randomness does not reject confrontation with destiny and the future. From the idea of “eternal return,” he delineates a changing and mutable flight from the limitation imposed by destiny rather than a total escape from that destiny. Deleuze’s observation of the dice-casting metaphor further elucidates the meaning implied behind it:
[I]t is not that a large number of throws produce the repetition of a
combination but rather the number of the combination which produces the repetition of the dicethrow. The dice which is thrown once is the affirmation of chance, the combination which they form on falling is the affirmation of necessity (destiny). Necessity is affirmed of chance in exactly the sense that being is affirmed of becoming and unity is affirmed of multiplicity.” (26)
Deleuze’s analysis of dice-casting in TSZ highlights the notion that “unity does not suppress or deny multiplicity,” and that “necessity does not suppress or abolish chance” (26). This awareness dissolves the contradiction in the literal meaning between destiny (the future) and contingent history. The subterranean message is that they are closely intertwined. Through the dice-casting metaphor, Nietzsche affirms the contingency of history and its production because in the act of dice-casting (this is, a historical moment) an unpredictable and changeable result in turn becomes the formation of the next historical moment. Henceforth, destiny and the contingency of history are not in extreme dichotomy. While destiny repeats itself and seemingly presents a linear temporality, the contingency of history is the engine which drives the repetition of destiny and proffers human beings a future opportunity for a changing and mutable possibility.
In the section “The Vision and the Enigma,” Nietzsche initiates Zarathustra’s
meditation on the relationship between the repetition (unity) and contingency of
history (multiplicity). Zarathustra raises his question in his dialogue with the dwarf
who represents the follower of small virtues and the aforementioned clear boundary
between “good” and “evil.” Both Zarathustra and the dwarf are curious about the
existence of eternal return in terms of temporality but disagree with each other about
its essence. For the dwarf, “everything straight lieth. . . . All truth is crooked; time
itself is a circle” (Nietzsche, TSZ 154), thereby displaying the existence of eternal
return—“time itself will be a circle” (Nietzsche, TSZ 154). The attention to the repetition of time, however, predicates itself on the assumption that “This Moment [sic] (the gateway of the past and the future) [each historical moment]” is the repetition of the same” (Nietzsche, TSZ 154). The implication of the dwarf’s assertion is that each historical moment is the linear duplication of the past. Zarathustra clashes with the dwarf over the essence of eternal return. While recognizing the existence of eternal return, Zarathustra appreciates its changing essence and challenges the dwarf’s claim: “If everything [has] already existed, what thinkest thou, dwarf, of This Moment? Must not this gateway also—have already existed?” (Nietzsche, TSZ 154).
He later revises the dwarf’s viewpoint in the section “The Convalescent.” Through his interaction with the animals in the forest, Zarathustra understands that a historical moment is not really the duplication of the past in the process of temporal repetition.
Every moment, on the contrary, is the random combination of many causes in the past albeit its repetition. The animals in the forest call the convalescent Zarathustra’s attention to the “existence” of eternal return: “[e]verything goeth, everything returneth;
eternally rolleth the wheel of existence . . .” (Nietzsche, TSZ 211; emphases added).
However, they soon add that “[e]verything breaketh, everything is integrated anew;
eternally buildeth itself the same house of existence” (Nietzsche, TSZ 211; emphases added). Their later addition is reminiscent of the core value of eternal return—the renewing combination of the past causes (the progressive cycle of cause-effect) within the unified framework of eternal return.
Nietzsche deems it important to resolve the contradiction between the repetition
(unity) and the contingency of history (multiplicity) because it is resolution that
empowers man to cherish the unconstrained present moment. Underneath repetition
lies the becoming character of time; henceforth, time is always in a flux and free from
the constraint of the past. Nietzsche’s conviction enables man to simultaneously
recognize but reject the past and thus look to the future. “The future,” contends Zarathustra, “teachest that there is a great year of Becoming, a prodigy of a great year;
it must, like a sand-glass, ever turn up anew, that it my anew run down and run out”
(Nietzsche, TSZ 213). Man, therefore, is able to confront “the plexus of causes return[ing] in which [he] is intertwined” (Nietzsche, TSZ 214). Despite admitting his connection to the past, the past will again “create [himself]!” and make it possible for him to “pertain to the causes of the eternal return” (Nietzsche, TSZ 214).
Nietzsche’s theoretical discourse is helpful in understanding Smith’s dramatization of the unbearable past in White Teeth. This awareness, moreover, helps discern the contingency of history and its renewing power. It supports my contention that in her teeth illustration of historical legacies, Smith questions the myth of searching a stable root and cultural heritage in the past. Yet it remains unclear how Smith aligns her London fictional characters’ identities in White Teeth with the randomness of history, and the ensuing section will attempt to answer this question.
II. Identity and Diasporic Food Culture
Teeth are central to the relationship between the contingency of history, identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture. The following discussion will involve the heterogeneity of identity with the complexity of diasporic food culture. It is hoped that the heterogeneity of identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture can illustrate the plurality of human roots and question the essentialist thinking that Smith criticizes in her novel. The image of teeth is related to the feeding and eating function of human beings so it can be aligned with diasporic food culture to explicate the reciprocal interaction between immigrants and white Britons in terms of identity and its correlation with diasporic food cultural politics.
The complexity of identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture makes
explicit the emphasis on the problem of historical continuity. At best, the
heterogeneity of identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture can be reconsidered in the diasporic food culture of the post-war London. When some diasporic food restaurants proudly claim the “authenticity” of their ethnic cuisines, they are also articulating the accumulated history of the “typical” food culture and the Western construction of it. In the subsequent discussion on diasporic food, two points are noteworthy, especially with respect to the reciprocal interaction in shaping diasporic food culture and diasporic food restaurants. If we disregard the question of identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture, we may find that food is essential to the maintenance of our daily lives. First, I explore the affiliations and dissociations between identity and culinary culture. Second, I study the sustaining and reconfiguring interrelationship between identity and diasporic food restaurants.
The primary function of teeth—feeding and eating—is read as the starting point for contemplating the reciprocal interaction of ethnic groups’ identities in the diasporic food culture, which can reveal the haphazard nature of history.
Hillson’s archeological survey of teeth may be quite helpful for understanding the feeding function of food. He maintains that among the multiple specialized purposes of dentition, feeding is primary (13). It is the everyday life ingredient of human beings. Nevertheless, however common it is, culinary culture remains the most complicated phenomenon given that it involves not only human instinct but also the interpretation of identity. The following commentators, for example, suggest the reciprocal negotiation of cultural factors in culinary culture. Therefore, it is difficult to discover a “pure” and “homogeneous” element in any particular ethnic culinary food culture. In other words, it is an illusion to trace one’s identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture in “his/her” culinary culture.
Susanne Reichl observes the affiliations and dissociations between culinary
culture and ethnic identities. Responding to the affinity of food and the construction
of ethnic identities in Black British Novels, Reichl argues that the conventional way of regarding food as the “instrument of self-fashioning and identification” is worthy of reconsideration (177). Reichl proposes the concept of “culinary syncretism”; that is, ethnic food or diasporic foods are regarded as completely new in the British context because they arise “from an instance of cultural convergence and a compliance with English taste buds” (178). For example, Chicken Tikka Masala (CTM), “the most favorite take-away and convenience food in the UK,” was actually invented in an Indian restaurant through the negotiation between its western customers and waiters (Reichl 178). Therefore, there is no “authenticity [of Indian food]” in CTM because it is made of traditional Indian food (Chicken Tikka) and white Britons’ demands of the sauce (Masala). Interestingly, it is in combination of two different cultures that we define the character of culinary culture, especially the diasporic food culture—one can simultaneously experience the affiliations and dissociations with culinary culture. As Reichl notes, “food constitutes a vital part of a person’s sense of identity, and this sense of identity is particularly challenged with immigrants who settle in a foreign country” (192). For immigrants in the UK, ethnic food can be a marker of their affiliation with homeland culture and memory. On the other hand, the everyday life in the UK motivates them to “invent” food which is like and unlike the ethnic food. For white Britons, these inventions represent the dissociation from culinary culture. For white Britons and immigrants, these inventions stand for the reciprocal negotiation of cultures in terms of the discussion on ethnic identities and culinary culture.
Although his interest consists in the affinity between food and class in the British society, Allison James enriches our analysis of the reciprocal negotiation of cultural identities in shaping culinary culture. In his investigation of British food trend in the 1990s, James argues that there is no such thing as typical “British food” (71).
He invites his readers to “reaffirm” the hybrid nature of British food (71), and asserts
the British food is actually the assemblages of different foreign food. “Making a difference,” he implies, “has always been the leitmotif of British food” (77). In the early 1990s, James reads the trend hidden in “foodie magazines” which urge their British readers to pursue the “authenticity” of foreign food and enjoy themselves in the “culinary expatriate cosmopolitanism” (77). Through the publication of cookery recipes and books, British citizens find that “foreign ingredients were becoming more available” (78). In fact, the interest in foreign food is nothing new in the history of British culinary culture. James reminds his readers that ever since the nineteenth century, British food has been opened to French culinary influence (75-76). In fact, French food has become “a gastronomic hegemony” (James 76); consequently, “the food of the elite and aspiring upper middle-class British families . . . had a distinctly French flavour . . .” (James 76).
James surveys the traditional trend from the nineteenth century to the twentieth century—the acceptance of foreign food—to challenge the conventional belief in the self-evident connection between food and cultural identities. He maintains the need to pry carefully into the complicated character of culinary culture and cultural identities.
On the one hand, it is partially true and convenient to differentiate “us” from “the
other” through food; as James admits, “food marks out cultural identities” (72). Hence
it is a traditional as well as the easiest way for people around the world to read other
cultures. Therefore, as a primary way in which the notion of “otherness” is articulated
(James 72), food secures the identities of ethnicity or nationalism and sustains the
stereotype that “what we eat” is superior to “what they eat” (James 73). On the other
hand, culinary stereotype is constructed and full of interstices. James calls our
attention to the “fickleness” of the assumption that food always refers to specific
cultural identities (73), adding that “cuisines are not limited by geography or
nationhood” (73). In fact, culinary terms such as “Spanish cooking” or “German
food” should be understood in a global context because they involve culinary negotiation with diverse cultures. A pertinent example may be the “variety” of the
“standard Mediterranean diet,” defined by Sami Zubaida as diverse and “varied cultures” (qtd. in James 73). In this regard, it is hard to link specific cultural identities to culinary cultures.
Understanding the invisible power of food over one’s identity, Mark Stein chooses to investigate accumulated cultural elements in the typical Indian food—curry.
Stein’s strategy is to demystify the ethnic message inherent in curry and to regard curry as the culinary product of multiple elements—the Raj, British palate, and Tamil origins (136). Based on his perspective, the intertwined strata constructed by white Britons’ taste buds and post-war immigrants in contemporary London can be analyzed.
Specifically, curry is assumed to be the emblem of the reciprocal cultural interaction.
Before reading Stein’s discussion on the heterogeneity of the diasporic food—curry, it is necessary to explore his awareness of identity and food. Stein proposes reading the multiple meanings of “food agency” (147). Food, he asserts, allows the imagination of “shared humanity” under “variegated circumstances” (147).
Specifically, it is the rich character of food that each ethnic group or nation feels embarrassed to claim its rightful of culinary practice:
Food cuts across the “haves” and the “have-nots”—in its ordinariness it connects all human beings, irrespective of differences. Food, the external that is ingested, internalized, only to be expelled again, points toward the paradoxical relationship that humans can have to their surroundings, and that texts can have to their contexts. (Stein 147)
Stein indicates that complexity between human beings and food. Each culinary culture
is shown through its ingestion and internalization of the external environment. Its
implication is that in the process of internalization, it is possible and easy for each
culinary culture to blend with other culinary cultures. Thus, according to Stein, human beings display the specificity of culinary culture as well as the broadness of culinary blending, the process being similar to “texts have to their contexts” (147).
Curry, the supposed typical Indian food, exemplifies the diverse character that Stein observes. It is noteworthy that curry addresses the colonial and post-colonial history surrounding white Britons and Indian diasporic subjects in post-war London in that Stein assumes curry manifests the continuous reciprocal interaction between white Britons and Indian immigrants. On the surface, curry suggests the first impression that Western sailors have of the Indians. In John Huighen van Linschoten’s description of the Indians, “carriil [curry]” is “their [the Indian’s] ‘dayly meat,”
differentiating the Indians from Europeans because curry contains “rice” instead of
“bread” along with fish (qtd. in Stein 135-36). The term curry started from the Tamil term, “kari,” and soon became a reminder of the existence of Indians for the European sailors. At the same time, curry makes its presence in British society and receives broader interpretation from different cultural norms and influences. According to Stein, curry serves as “an index of the intermingling of different cultural norms and requirements which thus manifest themselves materially” during the Raj (136). The white Britons add British palates into the term and “domesticate” it into the British food (136-37). Consequently, “a far wider range of sauces or dressings” with rice can be named curry (136). In this regard, curry demonstrates not only the exotic but also the domestic image of culinary culture for the British. For instance, in 1848 William Makepeace Thackeray invites his friends to have dinner because of “curry” (137).
Although Stein regards the British’s invention as imperial “intervention” (137), his
emphasis on the intervention also suggests the reciprocal interaction of white Britons
and Indians in shaping the later representation of “curry” in the narratives of Indian
writers. For example, Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy employ the image of food,
especially curry, to describe the history of India. They do so, contends Stein, because their strategy is to expose the “memory found in the leaks and spillages” (145), which, as proposed in this thesis, is the trail of reciprocal interaction in the construction of
“curry.”
The process of reciprocal negotiation can be examined in another situation—the restaurant. This thesis asserts that restaurants activate the daily exchange of culinary cultures and the negotiation of cultural identities in post-war London, particularly those that sell diasporic food since they highlight the exchange between culinary culture and cultural identities. First, the diversity-embedded nature of a restaurant will be examined in light of Rebecca L. Spang’s discussion of the origin of the restaurant since the eighteenth century. Second, based on Joanne Finkelstein’s survey on dining out in restaurants, the fact that a restaurant stands as a public zone that negotiates diverse individual culinary desires and affects its diners in return will be delineated.
Based on this understanding, Alan Warde and Lydia Martens also call to attention the dining out experience of London citizens since 1950s. Their survey reads the popularity of ethnic restaurants and their production of “ethnic food” as the exotic food for London customers. Last of all, Rudiger Kunow’s observation of Indian restaurants all over the world will be consulted. For Kunow, Indian restaurants are like “contact zones” which negotiate the white man’s culinary desires and the Indian culinary cultures. They demonstrate the diaspora of Indian immigrants but at the same time represent the rising culture they cultivate in the host country. Thus, this blending nature of the restaurant manifests the heterogeneity of cultural identities in the second section.
Spang maintains that the rise of restaurants displays the spirit of negotiating all
different kinds of materials, essentially ending the “rights of the established catering
guild” before the nineteenth century (9). For Spang, the first modern restaurants “were
the products of our modern way of life” (11). Before the opening of the first restaurants in Paris, retail food trades and monopolized guilds dominate the food supply of Paris (Spang 8).
3Organized into “twenty-five different guilds,” the food retail “were characterized by extreme divisiveness and exaggerated compartmentalization” (Spang 8). The “charcutiers,” which “monopolized trade in sausages,” are not allowed to deal with “purveyors of game and other ‘prepared meats . . . , larded or roasted or ready to eat” (Spang 8). As such, it is expected that
master cook-caterers held the right to serve full meals to large parties, and master winesellers could sell liquid refreshments to groups and individuals, but no tradesman was allowed to combine those functions (and others) in order to operate what we today define as “a restaurant.”
(Spang 9)
The combination serving of all kinds of foods in “restaurants” breaks the compartmentalization of the guilds. From then on, “restaurateurs” can serve their customers cuisines composed of a variety of food materials. In fact, before the public appearance of the “first restaurants” in Paris, customers may have already witnessed the breakdown of compartmentalized retail trades. Spang indicates that “the majority of the cook-caterers of Paris would have been well within their legal rights had they run businesses that sold a variety of foods and a wide range of potables” (11). In that light, restaurants, “the cultural institution[s] in Paris by the 1820s,” demonstrate the diversity-embedded nature.
Finkelstein stresses the reciprocal negotiation in the experience of restaurant dining. She maintains that as a public place, restaurants negotiate the diverse gastronomic expectations of individual customers and simultaneously affects their
3
The reason I explore the “first restaurants” in Paris is that Spang’s study stresses that “outside Paris,
it is hard to see restaurants in the mid-nineteenth century” (2).
culinary desires in return.
On the one hand, Finkelstein regards gastronomic experiences in restaurants as opportunities for customers to fulfill their culinary desires and personalities.
Restaurants, she reckons, are the “convergence of the personal and the social, the private and the public” (203). In their dining out experience, customers demonstrate their personal styles and character, thus, in that sense, desires can “be displayed and shown in the restaurants” (Finkelstein 204). The “exhibitionist style of public conduct” is manifested in the modern restaurants, a place where customers can exchange public conduct and receive the “the influences of social pretensions, guile, and the dictates of fashion . . .” (Finkelstein 202). In other words, restaurants provide a public space for diners to see and imitate the other customers’ conduct while eating.
When customers step into restaurants, they expect that displaying their “personal wealth, or the role of gastronome, bon vivant, ardent lover or fashion habitué” can enable them to receive and imitate other diners’ specific fashion as well (Finkelstein 202). Therefore, eating out is a social ritual. It negotiates the diverse personal desires of diners and influences their desires as well. In other words, gastronomic experiences produce and reproduce one’s culinary desires. According to Georg Simmel, “people came to act more alike and to enjoy similar interests” (qtd. in Finkelstein 212). Yet, customers share more than “similar interests.” They bring their different expectations and desires into restaurants and return with the experiences of having negotiated with other diners.
In addition, restaurants meet and control the culinary desires of customers.
Finkelstein points out that “dining out offers an actual means of realizing one’s
fantasies” (204). Eating in ethnic restaurants, for instance, both refreshes their
gastronomic experiences and satisfies their culinary desires for exotic flavors. Roland
Barthes asserts that Western customers enjoy eating in ethnic restaurants because
restaurants such as “oriental restaurants [serves] as convenient flights for the occidental’s ways of experiencing the oriental flavor without fear” (qtd. in Finkelstein 205). Barthes indicates that restaurants, especially ethnic restaurants, lure Western diners with restaurants’ exotic cuisines. In return, however, ethnic restaurants define
“ethnic food” or “diasporic food” in the Western customers’ gastronomic experiences.
Hence, it is again a reciprocal negotiation of desires between restaurants and customers.
Warde and Martens’ sociological analysis proffers the connections between ethnic restaurants and British citizens. They assert that two implications of the rising popularity of ethnic restaurants in the UK, especially in London, for consideration—economic factors for post-war immigrants and the “definition” of ethnic food. They maintain that ethnic restaurants in the UK is a “new phenomenon for the London citizens and it only appears in the twentieth century” (27). The expansion of ethnic restaurants is related to “patterns of immigration” and “to the specific mixture of entrepreneurial ambition among migrants and aptitude of particular cuisines for adaptation to English tastes” (27). First, ethnic restaurants in London bring forth wealth for the post-war immigrants who make their living by selling ethnic food. Warde and Martens’ survey of the commercial catering sector in 1995 shows that catering industries, especially restaurants, “are major employers” of workforce (26). It is interesting that Indian and Chinese ethnic cuisines occupy a
“substantial proportion” of the ethnic cuisine (Warde and Martens 27). Immigrants
make a living by selling ethnic food. Second, the introduction of ethnic specialty
enriches the eating out experiences of London citizens and helps “define” diasporic
food. “Eating out” has “taken a steadily increasing proportion of the household
expenditure on food (Warde and Martens 34), and ethnic restaurants are making more
money than the fast food chains in UK. In other words, British citizens desire exotic
food in ethnic restaurants. However, what they receive is actually the “invention” of ethnic food which is not necessarily similar to the “authentic food” in their home countries. Warde and Martens note that in the market-oriented trend, the ethnic specialty is standardized and loses it special meaning as an ethnic cuisine (30).
Diasporic food in ethnic restaurants, so to speak, not only reflects the taste buds of Western diners but also the “production” by ethnic restaurants.
In his observation of Indian food restaurants in the United States, Kunow reads the reciprocal negotiation of ethnic culinary practices. Indian food restaurants represent zones of contraction, where identity is sustained and reconfigured simultaneously (Kunow 156). He assumes that on the one hand, they sustain Indian immigrants’ identification with their Indian homeland. Specifically, the presence of Indian food restaurants affects the Indian diasporic community in terms of material and cultural aspects. First, Indian immigrants make their living in the host countries by running Indian ethnic restaurants (Kunow 157). The presence of diasporic food brings material satisfaction for them. Second, diasporic food suggests cultural connections to their home country. Kunow asserts that Indian food restaurants fulfill a role as agents to “mediate distances, as [they] invest food and food related behavior with a ‘presence’ which is both desirable and elusive” (158). It is through food and food related behavior that invite the Indian diasporic community to become “involved in complex negotiations of the ‘here’ and ‘there’” (Kunow 158). In this sense, the culinary practice in Indian food restaurants proffers the negotiation between Indian immigrants and identity.
On the other hand, Indian food restaurants reconfigure Indian immigrants’
identity. Although his analysis is based on the diasporic food culture in the US,
Kunow is quite accurate to read Indian restaurants as the “contact zone” which blends
the white customers’ culinary desires for “Indianness” with “traditional” and
“authentic” Indian cuisines. Ethnic restaurants, contends Kunow, is a space “where the representational ambiguity . . . , between the everyday mundane ‘Western’ world and its oriental other . . . intersects with another representational ambiguity . . . between diasporic displacement and the desire for home” (169). The “representational ambiguity” reflects Kunow’s assertion of the ambiguity in the definition of diasporic food culture, especially Indian food. Neither Indian immigrants nor Western customers are entitled to lay claim to the ownership of “Indian” food; rather, it is a joint consideration by Western customers and Indian immigrants. In reality, “‘Indian food’ is . . . an abstraction and something of a simulacrum, a representation” given the diversities of culinary practices in India. Therefore, it is problematic for Indian immigrants to affirm their cultural identification with their home country solely through “Indian food.” Presumably, culinary practices in Indian food restaurants redefine the cultural identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture of Indian immigrants because these cuisines are the product of reciprocal negotiation between Western and Indian culinary desires. Kunow employs Homi Bhabha’s term,
“vernacular cosmopolitan,” to describe the specific realm that food is located in and underscore the role of food as a “cipher of cultural identity and its correlation with diasporic food culture under duress” (qtd. in Kunow 166). Therefore, cultural identities, in this context, “straddle two cultures” and remain hard to define.
III. Biopolitics
This section contemplates the association between historical continuity and
“biopolitics,” specifically the governmental regulation in regard to bodily, scientific,
and moral reasoning. This survey characterizes the relation between teeth and their
biopolitical messages and counteracts the unfolding of a predictable future via bodily,
scientific, and moral methods. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the limitations of a
reprogrammed predictable future and its reductive inclusion of the diverse cultural
heritages are inherent in people’s physical makeup and family lives and their freedom to escape from a codified value system (for example moral statements). In the subsequent section, biopolitical government is divided into two phases—the regulation of bodily/everyday life ambience and universal intervention on scientific/social language or moral grounds (Foucault 73; Feher and Heller 42; Hardt and Negri 30). Biopolitical regulation rejects the randomness of history and establishes itself by ruling out possible randomness found in the body, everyday life, gene, and morality.
The first phase discusses the biopolitical regulation in the light of Foucauldian conception of “biopolitics,” which mainly focuses on the government of people’s body. In his short essay, “The Birth of Biopolitics,” Foucault demonstrates the invisible regulating power of the modern nation since the eighteenth century (73).
Biopolitics “rationalizes” the problems that people bring to the government, such as health and sanitation (Foucault, “The Birth of Biopolitics” 73). However, it is quite peculiar that the government (under the guidelines of liberalism) performs its rationalizing authority not from the institution but from activities that police human behaviors (Foucault, “The Birth of Biopolitics” 74). Accordingly, regulations are internalized in the human body and their lives (Foucault 76). This regulation of the body, according to Feher and Heller, also disguises itself in its intervention into the everyday life of the people, for example, in family networks. Biopolitics differ from traditional politics, Feher and Heller add, in its emphasis on everyday life (42). This
“uninstitutionalized” feature of biopolitics facilitates “mass mobilization” (Feher and
Heller 42). Moreover, biopolitical power operates in the family and helps
de-naturalize the ingrained family value, such as patriarchy (Feher and Heller 43). By
so doing, biopolitics functions by infiltrating its regulation into the details of people’s
everyday life.
In his short essay, “The Birth of Biopolitics,” Foucault bases his theory of biopolitics on his thorough study of liberalism. He argues that the dual faces of liberalism rewrite the definition of government and decompose the meaning of politics on the people. In Foucault’s understanding, biopolitics means
the endeavor, begun in the eighteenth century, to rationalize the problems presented to governmental practice by the phenomena characteristic of a group of living human beings constituted as a population: health,
sanitation, birthrate, longevity, race. . . . (“The Birth of Biopolitics” 73) From this passage, it can be inferred that biopolitics is relevant to the bodily government of people. The government teaches its people that they should be alert to their bodies so that the society can become “healthy.” Biopolitical power exists not as an institution but as activities that govern human behavior (Foucault, “The Birth of Biopolitics 74). People are urged to comply with the control of biopolitics because they are told that it is “rational” and “liberal” in that the state does not force its people to obey the rules. Instead, the government cultivates a social context where everyone feels obligated to follow the biopolitical order. In this regard, the governmental power justifies its existence not from a higher “reason of state” but from a society composed by individual citizens. The biopolitical power operates by employing a sense of
“liberal” to regulate and liberate the human body. This self-regulating power, in that sense, becomes the universal standard.
The modern expectation of having “white teeth” demonstrates Foucauldian biopolitics. In the name of rationality, people are instructed by the state apparatus to feel concerned about personal “hygiene” just as everyone is supposed to keep his/her teeth as white as possible. This universal standard motivates citizens to regulate themselves, so that the future of the nation or society can remain in a “healthy” state.
In this regard, teeth-brushing and personal dental care are more than neutral dental
hygiene practices. Teeth-brushing indicates the state’s imposed self-regulating power which intends to specifically reprogram the human body. A pertinent example of personal dental care can be read in the state-imposed removal of the third molar because its unexpected eruption interferes with the success of the biopolitical control of the human body.
In addition to the “white teeth” analogy, the image of canines can fully typify another aspect of the first phase of biopolitical regulation—its emphasis on the
“difference” of the body while at the same time appropriating that “difference” as a self-justified weapon to intervene in the people’s daily lives.
4This manipulation can be shown not from the state-imposed apparatus or activities but from the nuances of everyday life in the family, which criticize the “sanctioned ignorance” of women’s right and their “dominated” body in the name of rights language. Theoretically, the current biopolitics will be examined from Feher and Heller’s perspective. However, the meaning behind using the image of canines will be first delineated: (1) their association with the ripping force (2) their relevance to the production and manipulation of the difference of the body. It is hoped that these two perspectives can serve as a springboard into how the politics of difference is practiced in regulating the body.
First, canine teeth suggest aggression in terms of their etymological origin and oral anatomy. The term is derived from the word Latin, “canis,” meaning “dog”
(“Canine.” The Oxford English Dictionary). Canines are the largest teeth in mammals.
Long and pointed, they are often usually used by dogs for snarling (“Canine tooth.”
The Oxford English Dictionary). Therefore, based on their etymology and biological
4
Feher and Heller regard the bodily difference as the natural elements of the family qua the
Body—sexual difference, age and generation, and emotional character, which are conveniently
employed as the excuse for current biopolitical movements (Feher and Heller 42-45). I will elaborate
this idea in the following passage.
anatomy, it can be inferred that canines represent the image of aggression. The Latinate origin of the word explains the interlocking relationship between humans and dogs. Both species use their canines to fulfill their dietary demands, and most important of all, the function of aggression. Therefore, canine teeth are even larger and stronger than incisors and their roots sink deeply into the bones. Their features may indicate the requisite of the evolutionary process survival tool; at the same time, this feature bespeaks the message shared by mammals, especially dogs and humans:
they use the stronger teeth—canines—to rip apart the food they target, thereby imparting the significance of self-protection and aggression.
Understanding this aggressive message enables the biopolitical production and manipulation of bodily differences. This assertion is supported by Eric C. Brown’s writing, in which he explores the intertwined relationship among Caliban, Christopher Columbus, and canines in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Brown proposes that the term, “cannibal,” is actually the result of Columbus’ mishearing of friendly West Indians’ account, “Cariba,” and therefore recording it as “Caniba” (93). In the West Indians’ aboriginal language, the original meaning of “Cariba” refers to the unfriendly inhabitants (the people of Bohio). However, when another friendly tribal West Indians told Columbus there existed “Cariba,” an unfriendly tribe of Bohio, the latter interpreted the term, “Cariba” within his own linguistic context. Originally, the term
“Cariba” is used to denote a monster with the face of a dog and the appetite for eating
people, which connotes the tribal people’s ferocious nature and visible difference in
their physical appearance (Brown 93). It is interesting that Columbus misunderstands
the word and thereby misspells “Cariba” as “Caniba,” a reproduction of a new word
out of his own linguistic and cultural tradition, which to some extent suggests that he
is using his own culture and language as a universal standard to comprehend and
therefore rationalize any culture or language alien to his own. The aspect of
production is accentuated because Columbus capitalizes on the accounts to invent a Latin equivalent, Caniba, with its etymology of “canis” designating dog. The invention of the equivalent entry suggests the sharing of European and West Indian mind—the perception of aggression and violence in the people of Bohio. This example typifies Columbus’ belief that bodily difference not only exists between the Europeans and the West Indians but also among the people of the West Indians themselves because after all, the people of Bohio instills much fear in other native inhabitants. Thus, it seems that only the Latin derivative, “Caniba,” can stress their bodily difference.
Second, however, it should be noted that the sharing gesture also reflects the manipulation of bodily difference. The connection of the word, “canis,” to aggression, after all, derives not from the Western Indians’ original language but from European etymology. Columbus’ “cross-cultural” translation (from the West Indian’s “Cariba”
to the Latinate word “Caniba”) supplants the West Indian’s expression to prove bodily difference between the Indians and the Europeans. Columbus’ gesture of employing the Latinate expression to stress bodily difference suggests his perception of a universality shared by the Europeans and the West Indians—they speak the same language. However, this thesis regards Columbus’ invention of the bodily difference as his covert manipulation of the “universal” standard. The implicit message is that Columbus accepts their difference only at his level of language definition. Moreover, the West Indians’ bodily difference is recognized and allowed only in the context of his definition of the way of life, for example, language usage.
In this thesis, the meaning of canines—the production and manipulation of
bodily difference—is discussed in terms of the biopolitical power in everyday life as
is observed by Feher and Heller. Foucault observes that since the eighteenth century,
the biopolitical regulation of people’s body does not emanate from the institution per
se but from the society within. Following his assumption, Feher and Heller underscore the biopolitical control of bodily difference pervasive in a post-war democratic society.
Contrary to many other claims, in their book, Biopolitics, Feher and Heller argue that attention to the body rather than direct relationship to the state dominates our daily lives. Contemporary biopolitics stems from everyday life and disperses through the family, an institution which simultaneously constitutes “uninstitutionalized” and
“uninstitutionalizable” features (Feher and Heller 42). Feher and Heller are concerned with the rising and self-justified claims that drastically demand the politicization of
“natural” elements in the family (sexual difference, age and generation, and the emotional atmosphere) with “cultural” counterparts (the introduction of socio-cultural forms).
The primacy of contemporary biopolitics is its involvement with the “merger of the public, private, and intimate spheres” (Feher and Heller 42). Compared with Foucauldian biopolitics, contemporary biopolitics is premised on the “everyday life,”
making its claims justified from the people’s private and intimate spheres to public domain (Feher and Heller 42).
5Traditional biopolitics is established through the belief in rational thinking in the public sphere; it “guides” the body in the private and the intimate sphere to conform to the universal “imagination” of the body (Feher and Heller 42). However, present biopolitics opposes itself to the demarcation among public, private and intimate spheres. Instead, militants of present biopolitics replace
5
