Citizenship and scholarship in Emerson, Cavell and Foucault

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between democracy, citizenship and scholarship through the notion of voice. The conception of voice in current policy operates governmentally, and shores up an identity ordered according to existing classifications and choices rather than destabilising it, and enabling critique. Rather than leading to an empowerment then the notion of voice, found in policy, research and practice, constitutes a depoliticisation of citizenship. The work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stanley Cavell and Michel Foucault is drawn upon here to explore an understanding of voice constituted in seeking a different way of accounting for ourselves, a different relation of the self to the self and others than is demanded by the current order. This is explored in relation to thought and scholarship as expressions of one's voice and thus of one's citizenship.

Keywords:

• citizenship
• voice
• research
• Foucault
• Cavell
• Emerson

Notes

1. As a dimension of Western thought Cavell identifies numerous texts, philosophical and literary, as well as film, as perfectionist (for a list of examples: Cavell 1990, 5).

2. Despite this summary of Cavell's conception of moral perfectionism, Cavell makes clear that he does not wish to provide a definition of it, to list conditions for using the term, or provide ‘a closed list of features’ of it (Cavell 1990, 4). Saito's outline indicates those aspects that are central to and distinct in it.

3. ‘The Greek word basanos refers to a “touchstone”, i.e., a black stone which is used to test the genuineness of gold by examining the streak left on the stone when “touched” by the gold in question’ (Foucault 2001, 97).