Wearing Foucault’s Clogs: Biopolitics in Brazilian Educational Research

Abstract

The article initiates by presenting the context and effects of the uses of biopolitics, a notion that Foucault frames during a period of theoretical transition, when he operates important displacements in his analytics of power. In the second section, we take 45 articles that appeared in Brazilian main journals in the field of education, during the past fifteen years, and that referred either to the notion of biopolitics or biopower. We noticed that the problems confronted by Foucault during this biopolitical interlude have undoubtedly found an echo in the angst, hopes and obstacles faced by Brazilian researchers during the post-dictatorial times. We believe this happened, among other reasons, because of the paradox they were witnessing: the first steps Brazil was walking towards democratization of relations and institutions, at the very same time neoliberal practices and reforms were introduced into the horizon.