Michel Foucault’s work is rich with implications and insights concerning spatiality, and has inspired many geographers and social scientists to develop these ideas in their own research. This book, the first to engage Foucault’s geographies in detail from a wide range of perspectives, is framed around his discussions with the French geography journal Hérodote in the mid 1970s. The opening third of the book comprises some of Foucault’s previously untranslated work on questions of space, a range of responses from French and English language commentators, and a newly translated essay by Claude Raffestin, a leading Swiss geographer. The rest of the book presents specially commissioned essays which examine the remarkable reception of Foucault’s work in English and French language geography; situate Foucault’s project historically; and provide a series of developments of his work in the contemporary contexts of power, biopolitics, governmentality and war. Contributors include a number of key figures in social/spatial theory such as David Harvey, Chris Philo, Sara Mills, Nigel Thrift, John Agnew, Thomas Flynn and Matthew Hannah. Written in an open and engaging tone, the contributors discuss just what they find valuable - and frustrating - about Foucault’s geographies. This is a book which will both surprise and challenge.

Michel Foucault’s work is rich with implications and insights concerning spatiality, and has inspired many geographers and social scientists to develop these ideas in their own research. This book, the first to engage Foucault’s geographies in detail from a wide range of perspectives, is framed around his discussions with the French geography journal Hérodote in the mid 1970s. The opening third of the book comprises some of Foucault’s previously untranslated work on questions of space, a range of responses from French and English language commentators, and a newly translated essay by Claude Raffestin, a leading Swiss geographer. The rest of the book presents specially commissioned essays which examine the remarkable reception of Foucault’s work in English and French language geography; situate Foucault’s project historically; and provide a series of developments of his work in the contemporary contexts of power, biopolitics, governmentality and war. Contributors include a number of key figures in social/spatial theory such as David Harvey, Chris Philo, Sara Mills, Nigel Thrift, John Agnew, Thomas Flynn and Matthew Hannah. Written in an open and engaging tone, the contributors discuss just what they find valuable - and frustrating - about Foucault’s geographies. This is a book which will both surprise and challenge.

Interest in relations between knowledge, power, and space has a long tradition in a range of disciplines, but it was reinvigorated in the last two decades through critical engagement with Foucault and Gramsci. This volume focuses on relations between knowledge and power. It shows why space is fundamental in any exercise of power and explains which roles various types of knowledge play in the acquisition, support, and legitimization of power. Topics include the control and manipulation of knowledge through centers of power in historical contexts, the geopolitics of knowledge about world politics, media control in twentieth century, cartography in modern war, the power of words, the changing face of Islamic authority, and the role of Millennialism in the United States. This book offers insights from disciplines such as geography, anthropology, scientific theology, Assyriology, and communication science.

We are now living through a period of knowledge capitalism in which, as Castells put it, 'the action of knowledge upon knowledge is the main source of productivity.' In the face of such transformation, the economic, social and institutional contours of contemporary capitalism are being reshaped. At the heart of this world are an emergent set of economies, regions, institutions and peoples central of the flows and translations of knowledge. This book provides an interdisciplinary review of the triad of knowledge, space, economy on entering the twenty-first century. Drawing on a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, the first part of the book comprises a set of statements by leading authors on the role of knowledge in capitalism. Thereafter, the remaining two parts of the book explore the landscape of knowledge capitalism through a series of analyses of knowledge in action within a range of economic, political and cultural contexts. Bringing together a set of authors from across the social sciences, this book provides both a major theoretical statement on understanding the economic world and an empirical exemplification of the power of knowledge in shaping the spaces and places of today's society.

Hailed for its lucid presentation, TSK blends reasoning and experiential inquiry to offer a unique path of transformation. A deeply exhilarating book, TSK gives readers a language to ask the questions that conventional training teaches us to ignore. Thirty-five exercises reunite philosophy with direct experience.

Michel Foucault has become famous for a series of books that have permanently altered our understanding of many institutions of Western society. He analyzed mental institutions in the remarkable Madness and Civilization; hospitals in The Birth of the Clinic; prisons in Discipline and Punish; and schools and families in The History of Sexuality. But the general reader as well as the specialist is apt to miss the consistent purposes that lay behind these difficult individual studies, thus losing sight of the broad social vision and political aims that unified them. Now, in this superb set of essays and interviews, Foucault has provided a much-needed guide to Foucault. These pieces, ranging over the entire spectrum of his concerns, enabled Foucault, in his most intimate and accessible voice, to interpret the conclusions of his research in each area and to demonstrate the contribution of each to the magnificent -- and terrifying -- portrait of society that he was patiently compiling. For, as Foucault shows, what he was always describing was the nature of power in society; not the conventional treatment of power that concentrates on powerful individuals and repressive institutions, but the much more pervasive and insidious mechanisms by which power "reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives" Foucault's investigations of prisons, schools, barracks, hospitals, factories, cities, lodgings, families, and other organized forms of social life are each a segment of one of the most astonishing intellectual enterprises of all time -- and, as this book proves, one which possesses profound implications for understanding the social control of our bodies and our minds.

This volume explores interdependencies between knowledge, action, and space from different interdisciplinary perspectives. Some of the contributors discuss knowledge as a social construct based on collective action, while others look at knowledge as an individual capacity for action. The chapters contain theoretical frameworks as well as experimental outcomes. Readers will gain insight into key questions such as: How does knowledge function as a prerequisite for action? Why are knowledge gaps growing and not diminishing in a knowledge society? How much knowledge is necessary for action? How do various types of knowledge influence the steps from cognition to action? How do different representations of knowledge shape action? What impact have spatial conditions for the formation of knowledge? What is the relationship between social and geographical space? The contributors consider rationality in social and economic theories as well as in everyday life. Attention is also given to action theoretic approaches and rationality from the viewpoints of psychology, post-structuralism, and human geography, making this an attractive book for students, researchers and academics of various backgrounds. This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.