Subjugation

Shakespeare’s The Tempest is an outstanding theatrical microcosm representing the unavoidably overwhelming Foucauldian power relations in all human civilizations and their intricate interdependency of such power relations with the possession of knowledge and construction of reality. The fictional world of The Tempest is thoroughly endowed with the mechanisms of an intense web of power struggles and domination fixations which typically have been, are, and will be characteristic of any human society throughout history. For the sustenance of such a complex texture of power structures and for the manipulation of the overall balance to the advantage of a specific minority, the pivotal function of a constructed reality is as substantial in the story as the real life. Prospero, the central character, successfully manages to subdue all other dangerous, power-thirsty rivals by making use of his superior knowledge enabling him to shape the subjectivities/beliefs of other characters by different means including language and masquerades in an induced world of realities on the island. Shakespeare’s text can well be drawn on to reveal the stealthy workings of different social, cultural and especially moral institutions in recruiting subjects to their malignant power/knowledge network and duping the individuals with the desired notions produced constantly by the institutional apparatuses leading to the construction of an exploitive ‘truth.’

The present study shows that abolitionist feminists, inspired by Foucault's biopolitical and agonistic analysis of power and his view on the capacity of modern power (bio-power) in the construction of subjectivity and the necessity of resistance against all forms of subjectivity as forms of subjugation, have proposed some abolitionist feminist criminal strategies in the fight against sexual violence against women as resistance strategies to subjectivity. The purpose of the study is to consider the inspiration of abolitionist feminist criminal strategies from Foucault's theory of power and provide two concrete examples of these strategies by using the methodology of critical discourse analysis of bio-power. The current study analyzed two abolitionist feminist-Foucauldian criminal strategies: Chloe Taylor's negative abolitionist feminist criminal strategy (2019) and Holly Henderson's positive abolitionist feminist criminal strategy (2007). Explaining the process of construction of the sex-delinquent subject and the process of construction of feminine subjectivity and providing ways to fight against these two forms of subjectivity, as forms of subjugation that are constructed by bio-power, are the principal axes of analysis in these Foucauldian abolitionist criminal strategies. The result of the current study is that Taylor, with a Foucauldian approach, shows how bio-power produces sex-delinquent subjects in two ways: the normalization of sexuality and the normalization of sexual violence in prison. According to Taylor, the only way to end sexual violence is to subvert the sex-delinquent subject as a form of subjectivity, and the only way to do this is to abolish prison. Henderson, with a Foucauldian approach, shows how bio-power produces feminine subjectivity through the normalization of sexuality, and this feminine subjectivity is the reason for the continuation of sexual violence. Henderson argues that to prevent sexual violence, the feminine subjectivity must be deconstructed, or in other words, the female body should be re-conceptualized in the structure of violence by recognizing the capacity of resistance in the female body and her agency. Therefore, inspired by Foucault's view on the agonistic conception of power, she proposed a positive abolitionist criminal strategy by promoting physical feminism and self-defence. Taylor calls for the implementation of transformative justice as an alternative to criminal justice to combat sexual violence, and Henderson calls for the implementation of preventive justice, a type of physical feminism, to prevent sexual violence. The research findings confirm the feasibility and applicability of Taylor and Henderson's strategies in the context of societal models of criminal policy, which seek to combat or prevent crimes outside the state and the criminal justice system. In comparison between these two strategies, transformative justice has been more developed and applicable.