Michel Foucault introduced the notion of dispositif of sexuality in The Will to Knowledge (1976). Soon afterwards he took part in a discussion organized by a French magazine 'Ornicar?' during which he was asked to explain synthetically his concept of dispositif. Over the next decades this short, and rather forced utterance was translated into German and English. These translations differ from each other not only with regard to their solutions how to substitute a French term dispositif with another word - accordingly German or English - but also because of a variety of details that are meaningful for the profiles of dispositif analysis and based on Foucault's thought postulated in research. This theoretical and methodological perspective has being developed since Foucault's death in 1984, especially since the 1990's. One can indicate numerous and significant differences between the German- and English-language dispositif analysis, as well as between both of them and the Foucault's original concept. There is a need to question if the researchers who identify dispositif with a social network or with a material infrastructure of discourse (inter alia communication technology and social practices mediated through this technology) still follow Foucault's concept of power-knowledge to which they refer so willingly? This problem seems to be notably important at present - when more and more researchers in Poland show their interest in dispositif's concept. Therefore, a demand to translate its key terms into Polish emerges. In this article the dilemmas of Polish and other translations are presented on samples of several Foucault's utterance in 'Ornicar?' translations and fragments of contemporary texts from the field of German- and English-language dispositif's analysis.
Artykuł dotyczy współczesnego przyrostu obietnic emancypacji w dyskursach socjologii krytycznej. Wiązane z emancypacją stymulowanie refleksyjności i sprawczej podmiotowości (agency) jest generalnie i często w sposób bezkrytyczny traktowane jako warunek rozwoju społecznego. W efekcie „boomu na emancypację” następuje rozmycie znaczenia pojęcia emancypacji i stępienie krytycznego ostrza tych nurtów, które problem władzy i podmiotowości mają na sztandarze. Z jednej strony, skutkiem tych procesów jest redukcja idei emancypacji do aktywistycznej społecznej praxis i do technologii uwłasnowolnienia. Z drugiej, idea emancypacji staje się represyjnym instrumentem oceny działań indywiduów. Problemy te zostaną omówione na przykładzie teorii postkolonialnej i społecznie zaangażowanej performatyki. Warto dziś przeciwstawić socjologii krytycznej socjologię krytyki i wrócić do krytyki samego pojęcia krytyki. Punktem wyjścia do metarefleksji mogłaby być koncepcja krytyki Michela Foucaulta.
EN
The paper discusses the proliferation of the emancipatory promises in discourses of critical sociology. The stimulation of reflexivity and agency, that is commonly associated with emancipation, is usually uncritically regarded as sine qua non of social development. As a consequence of “the emancipation boom” the notion of emancipation is becoming blurred and vaguely comprehensive, and critical analyses of power and subjectivity are losing their rebellious potential. On the one hand, the idea of emancipation is being reduced to an activist social praxis and to a technology of empowerment. On the other hand, the idea of emancipation serves as a repressive measure of evaluating human activities. These problems are illustrated with an example of post colonialism and socially involved performance studies. Today it seems necessary to juxtapose critical sociology and sociology of critique – and return to the critique of the notion of critique itself. Michel Foucault’s concept of critique could be a starting point for a metareflection.
Social sciences are interested in ethnic entrepreneurship as a chance for migrants to (better) integrate into the host labour market, and in consequence into a host society. Th e multidimensional models capture a wide range of factors at the bottom of the economic behaviour of migrant entrepreneurs, and they increasingly consider that migrants might profit in business from sustaing their social ties with the country of their origin. Looking at Polish migrant entrepreneurs in eastern German regions bordering to Poland we plead for a relational perspective which considers migrants’ business activities in relation to the patterns of trans-border residential mobility and complex social and economic transformations in Polish and German border regions.