Culture, Theory and Critique

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Normativity versus normalisation: reassembling

actor-network theory through Butler and Foucault

Jacob Maze

To cite this article: Jacob Maze (2020): Normativity versus normalisation: reassembling
actor-network theory through Butler and Foucault, Culture, Theory and Critique, DOI:
10.1080/14735784.2020.1780623

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2020.1780623

Published online: 22 Jun 2020.

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CULTURE, THEORY AND CRITIQUE
https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2020.1780623

Normativity versus normalisation: reassembling actor-

network theory through Butler and Foucault
Jacob Maze
Department of Political Science, Facutly of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

ABSTRACT
Judith Butler is often heralded as carrying on the legacy of Foucault,
yet Butlerian normalisation is engrained in a sincere
(mis)interpretation of Foucault. Foucault’s work on punitive
measures defined a historically-limited domain by which one
could map out a clustered network of power relations, or what he
called a dispositif. By revisiting their differences and rethinking
their relationship accordingly, one can piece together a
methodological model that is immensely utilisable for actor-
network theory (ANT). While Butler’s performativity allots agency
to nonhuman entities – viewing it more as a dispersed field of
agency – Foucault’s genealogy contextually places various power
relations, particularly pertaining to material and immaterial
nonhuman entities. More than just laying out a method for ANT
though, highlighting their differences can help us rethink how we
visualise the subject, the body, materialism and agency in very
innovative ways while also gaining a deeper insight into what
separates Foucault and Butler. Alongside this, we can see how
their combined contribution helps ANT with (a) its lack of
attention given to immaterial entities, (b) its reluctance to deal
with identarian politics and (c) the divide between its more
performative and its more practical branches.

Introduction
Judith Butler appears to present a seminal misreading of Michel Foucault, and though no
universally correct reading exists, what I mean is that her interpretation (intentionally or
unintentionally) reaches beyond academic debates within Foucauldian studies (e.g.,
Falzon, O’Leary and Sawicki, 2013; Kelly 2012; Oksala 2009; Taylor 2011). Foucault
built his work around showing historical contingencies (Flynn 2005; O’Farrell 2005),
but what has resonated for many is that these contingencies have impacted the ways we
understand ourselves. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish explicates an approximately
two-century-old system of control going mostly unnoticed in the Western world, one in
which we were all participants, as were various nonhuman entities. The rigid punitive
practices that spawned the largescale use of the prison developed a subject expected to
be normal, submit to authority and act according to this ideal without further assistance,
and yet what was historical for Foucault became universal for Butler. While Foucault

CONTACT Jacob Maze Jacob.maze@fsv.cuni.cz

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 J. MAZE

sought to understand the ontological groundwork for how subjects and nonhuman entities
came to know themselves in the contemporary world (Allen 2010; Rouse 2005), Butler
used this to develop an understanding of how anything comes to rise on an ontological
plane in general, with a particular focus on agency (Chambers and Carver 2008: 92–
118; Lloyd 2007: 68–74). Many Foucauldian academics have consequently misjudged
Butler by resorting to Foucault’s historical principles, whereas scholars of identity politics
have likewise been critical of Foucault by using Butler’s process ontology.
Rather than making Foucault obsolete, Butler provides a trove of theoretical tools with
her normalisation – which I later term normativity – while Foucault provides methodo-
logical tools to contextually assess power relations in their material and immaterial
forms. However, this move has equally significant repercussions for actor-network
theory (ANT), which holds that the meaningful world is composed entirely of various con-
tingent yet performative relations while also strongly asserting that ANT studies must take
a symmetrical approach in that objects have agency independent of subjects. By under-
standing how Butler (mis)interpreted Foucault, a synthesis of the two allows us to reeval-
uate these thinkers together and individually and to make their philosophies highly
valuable for ANT since it can (1) expand the scope of ANT to immaterial entities (such
as nations or religions) as well as (2) issues pertaining to identarian politics (like race
or gender); this synthesis furthermore (3) helps bridge the gap between ANT’s theoretical,
performative branches and its practical, analytical branches. Alongside this, ANT’s
addition to Foucault and Butler provides a framework that overcomes the shortcomings
of their respective philosophies, providing tools to investigate historically-established cul-
tural phenomena, especially ones involving identity or noncorporeal institutions, through
material and immaterial practices that we would tend not to notice. The first section pro-
vides a brief overview of ANT and the dilemma of establishing performative as well as con-
textually symmetrical accounts of relations. Second, I explain my interpretation of
Butlerian normalisation, which is distinct from Foucault’s historically-confined normali-
sation (discussed in the third section). I wrap up by reviewing this comparison and touch
on how to distinguish positive from negative social transformations.

Actor-network theory: methods and beliefs

Often accredited as the founders of ANT, Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law are
all highly critical of its classification as a theory, with ANT scholars describing it as more
method than theory (Czariawska 2017; De Munck 2017; Latour 2005, 1999; Law 2009).
ANT claims the world is composed of diverse relations between objects and subjects,
and these entities maintain no meaningful existence outside of these relations (Czariawska
2017; Durepos and Mills 2011; Latour 2005). Law (2009) classifies this as ‘relational mate-
riality’, but he further ascribes a commitment to performativity. While ANT encompasses
multifaceted approaches, Jonathan Murdoch (1997) and later Durepos and Mills (2011)
summarise some of its common attributes: refusing to separate material and immaterial
ontology (or a symmetrical analysis), a constant back-and-forth between actors and
their embedded networks and acknowledging heterogeneity within actor-networks.
ANT is nevertheless unique in its understanding of nonhuman ‘things’, be they objects,
institutions or practices, as having agency (Callon 2008; Fox 2000; Müller 2015; Murdoch
1997). While constructivism admits that the world influences the subject, ANT
 CULTURE, THEORY AND CRITIQUE 3

additionally asserts that nonhuman ‘actors’ are imbued with their own agency; the term
‘actant’ often replaces the word ‘actor’ to generalise it for both human and non-human
performers (Brown and Capdevila 1999; Dugdale 1999; Kerr 2014; Latour 2005; Pyyhtinen
and Tamminen 2011). Running parallel to ‘relational materiality’, there has been a belief
that relations between actants are inherently performative (De Munck 2017; Law 2009;
Mol 1999), which has been met with an array of criticism, especially the notion of non-
human objects having agency and intentionality (Pickering 1993; Whittle and Spicer
2008). John Roberts (2012) and Erik Ringmar (2017) denounced ANT’s devotion to
material reality for inhibiting the inclusion of immaterial entities like nations, ideologies
or religion, which has been a prime shortcoming of ANT. Donna Haraway (1997: 128–
129) additionally expressed concerns about ANT’s reluctance to approach socio-political
phenomena like race, gender or class. The core problem in these criticisms is that ANT’s
founding principles can make it troublesome, though not impossible, to assess these kind
of noncorporeal or identarian entities.
In situating Butler and Foucault within ANT, an ideal place to begin is Latour’s ‘Five
Uncertainties’ about the natural world; coming from one of the founders of ANT,
Latour’s five requirements for a proper ANT study sheds light on how Butler and Foucault
can compensate for ANT’s shortcomings, and vice versa. The first pertains to there being no
pre-established social groups ‘that can be used as an incontrovertible starting point’ (Latour
2005: 29). In other words, the goal is to describe what there is, taking things at ‘face-value’ as
Foucault would say or what Latour calls a ‘performative definition’, without squeezing them
into predetermined conceptual caricatures (Latour 2005: 34). The second uncertainty
adheres to non-autonomous agency whereby ‘action is overtaken’, or rather a subject’s
actions are never entirely within their control since other ‘actants’ influence those actions
(Latour 2005: 45). This refutes accusations of determinism since subjects are always con-
ditioned but never wholly conditioned; more importantly, instead of the subject, ANT’s
focus becomes ‘the moving target of a vast array of entities swarming towards [an
action]’ (Latour 2005: 46). The third uncertainty asserts that ANT scholars must look at
the dispersed participative roles of action, meaning anything that acts or takes part in
action has a form of agency, which largely aligns with Foucault’s work. On the other
hand, the fourth uncertainty corresponds with Butler’s performativity: the focus of ANT
is not ‘matters of fact’ but rather ‘matters of concern’. Put differently, Latour calls for ‘trans-
lation’, which is ‘a relation that does not transport causality but induces two mediators into
coexisting’, or what Butler calls constitution (Latour 2005: 108).
Latour’s final uncertainty contends that ANT should not prescribe but instead capture
historical, locally-developed associations. While both Foucault and Butler adhere to the
first, second and fifth uncertainties (discussed later), Butler provides a performative frame-
work for the fourth uncertainty whereas Foucault contributes genealogical methods to
capture uncertainty three, reaching to the heart of ANT’s duality, whereby performativity
is needed as well as more contextualised accounts of actor-networks. Law (1999: 4) divides
this into ‘the semiotics of materiality’ and ‘performativity’; Latour (1999: 16–18) defines
these as ‘framing’ and ‘summing up’; Callon (2008: 34) divides this into action and
context. A Butler-Foucault synthesis bridges this gap, which has tended to cause problems
for ANT scholars – who often fall heavily to one side of the scale or the other.
It is not wholly absurd to draw on Foucault and Butler to discuss ANT either. Foucault
has a predominant place within ANT (Brown and Capdevila 1999; De Munck 2017;
4 J. MAZE

Dugdale 1999; Fox 2000; Law 1999), though Martin Müller (2015: 30) stresses that this
relationship remains undertheorised. Others have even noted a strong resemblance
between Foucault and Latour (De Munck 2017; Durepos and Mills 2011; Murdoch
1997). There have been references to Butler, though she is far less prevalent (Dugdale
1999; Mol 1999; Moser and Law 1999); meanwhile, Butler has shown a knowledge of
ANT, even explicitly citing Latour on occasion (Butler 2015: 87; Meijer and Prins 1998:
286), and her post-2000 writings have taken an ecological turn, making her far more appli-
cable for ANT.

Butler’s performative normalisation

In a 2004 anthology on Foucault and feminism, Butler laid out bodily construction within
the context of Discipline and Punish in her contribution entitled ‘Bodies and Power
Revisited’. In Butler’s interpretation of Foucault, ‘Power “attaches” a subject to its identity.
Subjects appear to require this self-attachment, this process by which one becomes
attached to one’s own subjecthood’ (2004: 190). Foucault (1983b, 1990b) too talked
about the subject in this manner towards the end of his life, yet his focus was always on
how subjects developed between historically-confined and circumstantial power relations.
Even when discussing the four dimensions of the ethical in History of Sexuality: Vol. II, he
was still attempting to determine the historical relations that allowed the subject to act in
spatio-temporally enclosed ways (Foucault 1990a). In reality, Butler’s argument about
power builds on one she made a few years earlier in Psychic Life of Power (1997b),
where her psychoanalytic and deconstructivist dispositions were merged with Foucault’s
influence; yet, Foucault’s role has been broadly inflated, causing Butler’s ideas to be attrib-
uted to him in many cases. Butler certainly said a great deal about psychoanalysis and
deconstructivism, but my focus here is on her theory of performativity, forcing me to
bypass her work on psychoanalysis or deconstructivism in any depth (as it would make
this article unruly and overly lengthy).
We thus begin to see a divergence in Butler’s and Foucault’s ambitions. Butler puts
forward a universal theory of ontological existence, specifically through normalisation,
which is not to say she never dealt with contingent circumstances. She does however uni-
versally apply these circumstances to her ontologically-rooted performativity, demonstrat-
ing how different hegemonies have come to exist. Taking this as a point of departure, I
argue that Butler consistently misreads Foucauldian normalisation, at least beyond the
purview of what Foucault’s intentions might have been, which is a tendency of ANT scho-
lars too (Brown and Capdevila 1999; Callon 2008; Kerr 2014). Perhaps this should not be
surprising, seeing how many of Foucault’s lectures, interviews and articles had not been
made widely available until more recently; these works clarified a great deal in Foucauldian
scholarship. What is therefore being emphasised is not a challenge to Butler’s interpretive
skills; it is her originality and creativity in shaping performativity largely outside of Fou-
cault’s shadow, so it is consequently necessary to grasp how Butler comprehends of
normalisation.
Butler’s theory of performativity is the process by which subjects and meaning come
into existence, explaining both the persistence of subjects and entities through power
(here meaning social norms), which produces the subject as well as the meaningful
world (and vice versa). Derived from the Marxist-structuralist Louis Althusser’s doctrine
 CULTURE, THEORY AND CRITIQUE 5

of interpellation, the subject is ‘hailed’ or called into existence, which in turn makes it intel-
ligible to the world (Butler 2011: 81–83). For instance, a nationality is attributed to indi-
viduals at birth, which follows them and shapes the entirety of their life. Interpellation is
routed in classifications that arise any time a subject comes to exist, though this is not a
simple game of name-calling as it is oftentimes not by choice: ‘The terms by which we
are hailed are rarely the ones we choose’ (1997a: 38). On top of this, the subject needs
to be interpellated for its constitution, or its coming into existence: ‘The call is formative,
if not performative, precisely because it initiates the individual into the subjected status of
the subject’ (Butler 2011: 82). In essence, individuals must be subjected to become subjects
in the first place, and this brings Butler in line with ANT’s dedication to ‘the performative
character of relations and the objects constituted in those relations’ (Law 1999: 7). Con-
sidering Foucault’s disciplinary power, a subject cannot be disciplined until they are recog-
nised as a student, a soldier or a worker (the type of discipline varies by the subject’s
constitution). Interpellation thus begins Butler’s performativity by structuring an onto-
logical process compelling existence over time, which Butler calls ‘the primary vulner-
ability’ (1997a: 26). The reason this is a vulnerability and not an opportunity is that
every individual is required to become subjected, so it is a process by which all subjects
(and objects) have already been vulnerably exposed to social networks.
The notion of vulnerability, much more prominent in Butler’s post-2000 writings, also
allows her to more deeply engage with materiality. Phrased as if taken from Callon, Latour
or Law, Butler argues that there is an ambiguity between the boundaries of the subject and
the object: ‘When the object acts on us, it does not monopolise the activity: it solicits us,
sparks our action. So where does the action begin, and where does it end?’ (2012: 7). She
has more recently claimed that ‘the body is less an entity than a living set of relations; the
body cannot be fully dissociated from the infrastructural and environmental conditions of
its living and acting’ (2015: 65). She then directly attributes agency to nonhuman actors:
‘Bodily movement is supported and facilitated by nonhuman objects and their particular
capacity for agency’ (2015: 72). I do not want to argue that Butler’s account of materiality
directly corresponds to ANT – she has largely been dedicated to speech acts, psychoana-
lysis and the subject in her work – but her comments about subjects can easily be
expanded to nonhuman actors. Butler’s philosophy can interact with a wide distribution
of agency rather than questioning how much agency individual subjects have, or as Callon
frames it, ‘To analyse this diversity [of agencies] we have to start with the concept of a dis-
tributed agency which can in no way be reduced to that of a “dressed” (or embedded)
agency’ (2008: 33).
From constitution and interpellation and via a Derridean analysis, Sassurian linguistics
is shown to explain how subjects are attached to signifiers (i.e., identities) through a means
of differentiation (Butler 2010: 54). These signifiers have no inherent value, no Kantian
‘thing-in-itself’, but obtain meaning through a constructive process whereby values arise
by being positioned in contradistinction to something else, a position indebted to decon-
structivism and psychoanalysis more than Foucault (Butler 2000: 12). For instance, one is
a man not because he has a penis but because he does not have a vagina, does not act in a
‘feminine manner’, does not wear dresses, etc. A vast array of material and immaterial enti-
ties simultaneously acts over this dynamic, such as gender-distinct shopping spaces, dress
codes, marriage practices, accessibility to social services and other environmental con-
ditions. Any object/subject can consequently only exist meaningfully in opposition to
6 J. MAZE

something/one else, which requires consistently repeating social norms to make sense of
themselves, their actions and the world. Intrinsic in this definition is the infinitely perpe-
tual inequality that permeates identity, and therefore the subject – or actant – itself. If man
is to exist, woman is bound to co-exist, and they are bound to co-exist in a network of
material and immaterial nonhuman entities.
When a meaningful difference becomes established, it consolidates into a social norm, a
long process whereby practices are accepted by a significant portion of a population and
the internal dynamics of a network: ‘[Social] construction is neither a subject nor its acts,
but a process of reiteration [repetition] by which both “subjects” and “acts” come to appear
at all’ (2011: xviii). Once a norm becomes accredited as common knowledge, it comes to be
viewed as a natural attribute, which Butler calls sedimentation. The prison, for instance,
illustrates a relatively new, nonfunctional and ill-managed institution, yet it is one that
most do not see as odd but rather commonsensical. Moya Lloyd explains that norms
do not rise spontaneously but attain their ‘force’ and ‘effectiveness’ ‘from the fact that con-
ventions that underpin them have accreted over time’ through repetition (2007: 63). While
some sedimentations are somewhat quick to change, others are more resistant because
there is an uneven distribution of agencies involved in any network; however, Butler
rarely indulges in the semantics of networks, making it difficult to gauge how to deal
with circumstantial distinctions using Butler alone. Within ANT, Butlerian performativity
is forced to include material and non-subjective processes, which she is not always inclined
to do; simultaneously, her incorporation makes it possible to address identarian politics, a
prominent shortcoming of ANT.
Critics have argued that one could just mis-repeat norms, thereby leaving the fault of
oppression to the oppressed (Moi 2005; Waters 1996), yet in order for an actant to make
sense of the world around it, it needs to ‘cite’ norms: ‘[The norm] is “cited” as such a [sedi-
mented] norm, but it also derives its power through the citation that it compels’ (Butler
2011: xxii). Such referencing is termed citationality, and this is required for a subject to
justify its acts. Of course, there may be mechanisms in place to coerce a citation, and
Butler, using ‘femininity’ as an example, makes this crucially clear: ‘Femininity is thus
not the product of a choice, but a forcible citation of a norm, one whose complex histori-
city is indissociable from relations of discipline, regulation, punishment’ (2011: 177).
When women become involved in feminist movements, they are not only engaging
with the man-woman dichotomy but actively participating in and repeating it by taking
up the mantle of ‘woman’; this is what permits the interpellation of women, whose
meaning can then be subverted.
Norms thus gradually become sedimented within relational networks by which the
subject (or actant) interprets them as normal. This citational-repetition is the bedrock
of Butler’s ontological claims: the subject/object never is but is constantly in a state of
becoming since, in order to maintain an identity, it must continue to act in a certain
manner. Butlerian performativity is situated at the crossroads of stagnation and trans-
formation, echoing theoretical tones of Catherine Malabou’s ‘plasticity’ or Iris Young’s
‘fluidity’ (Malabou, 2010; Young, 2005). This incessant need for repetition is further
backed up by ANT scholars, who view it as a pivotal part of the performative process
(Callon 2008; Cooper and Law 2016; Durepos and Mills 2011; Law and Mol 1995). A
person who has been polite their entire life could one day decide to start being rude,
and thus they would no longer be considered ‘polite’. Relational existence, therefore,
 CULTURE, THEORY AND CRITIQUE 7

requires continuation; additionally, Butler has recently been more accommodating to eco-
logical theories, illustrating that the subject – or its body – only comes to understand itself
through the objects upholding it, which are themselves upheld by their relation to the
subject and one another.
This arrangement nevertheless does not render actants powerless but opens up space
for potential subversive repetition. If power relations require persistent repetition, the
possibility of these norms being misrepeated is introduced:
For Foucault, then, the disciplinary apparatus [or dispositif] produces subjects, but as a con-
sequence of that production, it brings into discourse the conditions for subverting that appar-
atus itself. In other words, the law turns against itself and spawns versions of itself which
oppose and proliferate its animating purposes. (Butler 1997b: 100)

This performative existence invoking endless repetition is called normalisation, which is

often seen as the Foucauldian influence on identity politics:
If we understand the norms by which we are obliged to recognize ourselves and others as
those that work upon us, to which we must submit, then submission is one part of a
social process by which recognizability is achieved. (…) The question that Foucault opens,
though, is how desire might become produced beyond the norms of recognition, even as it
makes a new demand for recognition. (2004: 193)

This version of normalisation corresponds to ANT scholars Brown and Capdevila’s (1999)
understanding of relational existence being composed of substance (repetition), force
(citation) and expression (sedimentation), though framed as such, Butler’s understanding
of normalisation sets up room for investing in tactical subversive repetition. Nonetheless,
Foucault meant something strikingly different by normalisation – thus presenting a
dilemma heavily present in ANT as well – instead referencing a strictly concrete, historical
method for understanding ontological limitations in the contemporary world.

Foucault’s normalisation versus Butler’s normativity

Perhaps the best way to deduce the vying renditions of normalisation would be to look at
how Foucault and Butler frame the genealogical method. In many respects, genealogy was
a way for Foucault to distance himself from the trends towards deconstructivism at the
time – something Butler was apt to latch onto. Foucault used genealogy to interrogate
what was taken as natural, ‘banal facts’ (2003b: 181), and show how what was thought
to be calcified was open to change: ‘[Genealogy] disturbs what was previously considered
immobile; it fragments what was thought unified; it shows the heterogeneity of what was
imagined consistent with itself’ (2003a: 356). Seeking to illustrate how subjects play into
the constitution of their own subjectivities, Foucault realised the need to map out the
role of material and immaterial nonhuman entities without reducing his philosophy to
historical materialism. As a result, he asks how power relations have contributed to cir-
cumstantial, ontological paradigms and how these shaped our world.
For Butler, genealogy is not inherently historical but can assess contemporary issues
isolated from their pasts via immanent critique ‘to provoke critical examination of the
basic vocabulary of the movement of thought’ (2010: vii). Butler’s interpretation aligns
with ANT, but her commitment to material entities is far below the threshold many
ANT scholars desire; though not omitting materiality, her core interest is the performative
8 J. MAZE

aspects of ontology rather than ‘summing up’ contextual relational networks. While she is
reminiscent of Foucault, especially in her lexicon, her strategy falls closer to Hannah
Arendt (as well as Simon de Beauvoir and Jacques Derrida) in her concern for the
human condition. She was not trying to write a ‘history of the present’ (Foucault
2003b) but to uncover the ultimate processes by which it was possible to become a
subject/object en toto.
Foucault’s interest in power was not its absolutist qualities or actorial implications but
the networks of historically-manifested schemas in which power emerged, asserting an
‘analytics’ over a ‘theory’ of power (1990a: 83–84) just as ANT scholars argue it is a
method rather than a theory. He was far more attentive to the games produced through
different relationships than the actual process of performativity – though he addresses
this at times – meaning that the job of nonhuman entities became more essential for
him than for Butler. By putting power within a relational framework, Foucault was
demonstrating the need for power relations to be placed locally in particular periods of
time: ‘It is not enough to say that the subject is constituted in a symbolic system. (…)
It is constituted in real practices – historically analysable practices’ (1983a: 250). In Dis-
cipline and Punish, Foucault elicited the rationality behind the large-scale disciplinary
apparatus that had developed in Western Europe (especially in France). These new associ-
ations contributed to how knowledge was constructed, even to the point of incarnating
themselves on the body. The act of punishment became ‘intended to apply the law not
so much to a real body capable of feeling pain [as torture previously had] as to a juridical
subject, the possessor, among other rights, of the right to exist’ (Foucault 1995: 13). By
infusing discipline onto the body, power relations sought to coerce desired behaviour
through material and immaterial relations. As Foucault aptly states, ‘The expiation that
once rained down upon the body must be replaced by a punishment that acts in depth
on the heart, the thoughts, the will, the inclinations’ (1995: 16). In this process, the
subject was broken down only to be recreated anew, or so was the intention. At the
same time, discipline imbued material objects, architecture and the judicial system with
a sense of agency and intentionality outside the reach of subjective control.
Many ANT scholars still criticise Foucault for not attributing agency nor intentionality
to anything outside the subject (for example, Brown and Capdevila 1999; Durepos and
Mills 2011; Kerr 2014), yet this is a gross misunderstanding of Foucault’s central claim.
In History of Sexuality: Vol. I, he explains how to properly trace the development of
what he calls dispositifs, which are ‘thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble[s]’ of material
and immaterial practices as well as ‘the system of relations that can be established
between these elements’ (Foucault 1980: 194). More precisely, dispositifs are a calcified,
historically-situated network of competing power relations that gain their force by refer-
encing a system of knowledge. For instance, a teacher can give a student homework but
not the other way around because of their respective positions within a disciplinary dispo-
sitif, which relies on a vast array of relations (school hierarchies, canons within fields of
study, examinations, teacher-student relationships, etc.) within a system of knowledge
(not only the topic being taught, but a whole array of educational sciences, local and
national educational mandates, etc.).
In the process, Foucault directly claims, ‘Power relations are intentional and nonsub-
jective’ (1990a: 94). Essentially, subjects act, but those acts interact with other subjects
and nonhuman entities, taking on a life of their own independent of any original
 CULTURE, THEORY AND CRITIQUE 9

intentions. The result of this is ‘great anonymous, almost unspoken strategies which coor-
dinate the loquacious tactics whose “inventors” or decisionmakers are often without
hypocrisy’ (Foucault 1990b: 95). Students and teachers did not create the historically-
specific and relatively recent disciplinary dispositif, but this network inherently relies on
their participation; both can influence it, but only within a field of other competing
actions. Contrary to the notion that Foucault denied agency to nonhuman entities, this
was the linchpin of his genealogical project: uncovering ‘great anonymous, almost unspo-
ken’, relational and agency-imbued dispositifs composed of material and immaterial non-
human entities (for more on dispositifs, see Bussolini 2010; Maze 2018).
These new punitive measures – the disciplinary dispositif – required a normative stan-
dard that the subject ought to achieve: a determined objective for which the punitive
measures could aim. Whether an ideal student, soldier, citizen or woman/man, there
was suddenly a direction for the subject to move towards. Foucault historically situates
this usage of norms by which the subject came to be evaluated. Not only this, the
subject was persistently appraised or examined and, based on their assessment, subjected
to a network of coercion and incentivisation, yet this was only possible within an indus-
trialising country capable of such bureaucratic machinations, meaning this was a process
by which the subject shaped material (and the other way around) through a newly emer-
ging association of relationships. Butler’s adoption of disciplinary power and normalisa-
tion is situated in a theory of ontology that makes claims to how existence persists;
however, Foucault was employing a methodology to map out the particular ontological
limits of the disciplinary dispositif in our time. Foucauldian normalisation arose at a
certain time as a political mechanism, whereas Butler positions it as a necessary com-
ponent of any ontological grounding.
The understanding of subjects – or rather, bodies – shaped through adherence to norms
projected a severe pivot from Foucault. For many, this was a unilateral, not historical,
process of coming into being (e.g., Butler 2004; Laclau and Mouffe 2001; Young 2005; Fou-
cault was even interpreted by many ANT scholars in this way, including Callon 2008).
Foucault was instead arguing that the subject, in its contemporary form, is shaped to an
extent by the manifestation of disciplinary power (1995: 204), yet this was not the only
dispositif. The biopolitical (monitoring the health of populations) and governmentality
(the art of governance) dispositifs had an active role in constructing the subject, its
body and its world. In fact, in his lecture series Security, Territory, Population, Foucault
distinguishes between disciplinary power’s individualising normalisation, which he
terms ‘normation’, and governmentality’s collectivising normalisation, both of which
were historically constructed (due to the risk of confusion, I have chosen to focus solely
on disciplinary normalisation) (Foucault 2009: 55–86). Disciplinary power was merely
the dispositif that worked on individualising the subject and assessing it in accordance
with a normative rubric:
It was a question not of treating the body, en masse, ‘wholesale’, as if it were an indissociable
unity, but of working it ‘retail’, individually; of exercising upon it a subtle coercion, of obtain-
ing holds upon it at the level of the mechanism itself – movements, gestures, attitudes, rapid-
ity: an infinitesimal power over the active body. (1995: 137)

Seeing disciplinary power as the normalisation process for any ontological foundation is to
universalise what Foucault saw as one among many ways the subject came to exist.
10 J. MAZE

It is therefore essential to make a distinction between Butlerian and Foucauldian nor-

malisation, or the procedural push to become normal. I reserve the term ‘normalisation’
for Foucault’s understanding of the mechanisms involved in disciplinary power (or other
contingent dispositifs using normalising tactics); for its employment in the philosophy of
the subject and identity politics, Butler included, I have designated the notion of ‘norma-
tivity’. Normalisation still implies the procedural characteristics of power in its historical
forms. On the other hand, normativity implies the ontological necessity of norm-rep-
etition/-sedimentation, even if it sacrifices some of the procedural connotations. This is
to avoid ambiguity when discussing the two. Thus, one can have different types of normal-
isation but only vying interpretations of normativity. As a facet of Butlerian performativ-
ity, normativity refers to the way in which social networks (power relations) rely on
sedimented rituals and only allot a degree of flexibility. This interpretation greatly contrib-
utes to the discussion in ANT studies on the repetition and persistence of relations, the
notion that ‘actor’ and ‘network’ are not dichotomous and the view that agency is a
plane of action rather than a human faculty. The pertinent question now is what the impli-
cations of this distinction mean for a Butler-Foucault synthesis.

Conclusion: Butler and Foucault beyond ANT

Returning to Latour’s five uncertainties, Butler and Foucault are more than able to
sufficiently fulfil the criteria for a good ANT model. In terms of the first uncertainty,
both Butler and Foucault look at what exists to explain how the relationships between
actants, in ANT parlance, are either constructed or sustained, providing grounds for a
‘performative definition’ of relations composing a network. Butler avoids the pitfalls of
individual agency by viewing it as a component of relations, positioning agency as a
field of possible actions. Meanwhile, Foucault’s dispositif aligns with the popular ANT
theory of ‘black boxes’, or the general understanding of a social background (Besel
2011; Heeks and Stanforth 2015; Latour 2005; Pyyhtinen and Tamminen 2011), and
Callon (2008) even uses Foucault’s model of dispositifs to construct his consonant
model of agencement. The context-dependent outlines of relational networks, which
account for the complexity of agencies and the intentionality of nonhuman entities, is
encapsulated by both Butler and Foucault; while Foucault incorporates the non-discursive
far more than Butler, Butlerian normativity is open to this. Between the two, an array of
doors opens up for assessing both immaterial entities, such as Foucault has done with
sexuality, madness and discipline, and the perseverance or transformation of identities,
as Butler has done with gender, race and creed. These are two prominent problems that
have inhibited many from taking up ANT, and their synthesis allows an almost perfect
bridge between the performative wing of ANT studies and its more operationalising
wings. Yet, this is a two-way street, one where both Butler and Foucault benefit from
this relationship as well.
The third uncertainty involves the need to integrate any entity (actant) that acts, despite
often making ANT studies far more complex. Foucault was renowned for his ability to
intertwine material practices that form the relationships between actants. His observation
of relations being ‘intentional and nonsubjective’ emphasises immaterial and non-discur-
sive practices, such as the state, sexuality or discipline, not only fulfilling the third criteria
but also making criticisms of ignoring immaterial, nondiscursive entities obsolete.
 CULTURE, THEORY AND CRITIQUE 11

Nevertheless, Foucault falls short when it comes to providing a general theory of perfor-
mativity and identity persistence, or what Law called the ‘implicit’ characteristics of
methodology:
Methods practices are performative. They help to enact the world that they describe. Since
the character of this performativity is predominantly implicit, we need an archeological
reading. (…) Such an archaeology is always relational, always incomplete, always capable
of articulating new versions of performativity. (2009: 249)

This is fixed by the addition of Butler, who, fulfilling Latour’s fourth uncertainty, stresses
the need for ‘translation’, or an explanation of actant constitution and performativity.
Butlerian normativity – which involves interpellation, constitution, repetition, sedi-
mentation, citationality and subversion – overcomes Foucault’s weaknesses. On top of
this, Butler’s normativity is more expansive and explanatory than the models presented
by various ANT scholars (such as Alcadipani and Hassard 2010; Brown and Capdevila
1999; Law and Singleton 2000; Moser and Law 1999; Orlikowski 2005), which is of the
utmost value for a discipline that prides itself on resisting simplifications. Butler goes
beyond many ANT scholars by locating the possibility for change, enabling her to describe
how relations are modified over time without resorting to prescriptive premises:
[Normativity] refers to the aims and aspirations that guide us, the precepts by which we are
compelled to act or speak to one another, the commonly held presuppositions by which we
are oriented and which give direction to our actions. On the other hand, normativity refers to
the process of normalization, the way certain norms, ideas, and ideals hold sway over embo-
died life and provide coercive criteria for normal ‘men’ and ‘women’. (2003: 3)

In this need to repetitively cite power relations exists a possibility for repeating incorrectly,
thus subverting the nature of the relationship. Put differently, it is not a question of
whether subjects or objects have agency but rather an assessment of the processes of
agency that exist across a dynamic network in which actants are formed. As a result,
none of the key agential components of ANT are sacrificed in Butler’s account –
though they may be greatly expanded upon – but Butler’s resistance to delve into more
circumstantial scenarios limits her contributions. Of course, Butler can hardly be
faulted on this point, as this was not her intention. The same holds true for Foucault.
An ANT deployment of Butlerian performativity thereby forces the researcher to take
material and immaterial entities into consideration, a turn Butler herself has begun to
make. Butler’s theory of performativity, though invaluable in its propositions, remains vir-
tually useless without the ability to operationalise itself in real-world, concrete scenarios,
which is precisely what Foucauldian genealogy permits.
There is still one final issue that must be resolved, which is how to establish the criteria for
deciding what types of relationships are negative and what types are positive, without which
the whole procedure of Foucault’s genealogy, Butler’s performativity and ANT would be
pointless. However, thanks to Foucault and Butler, this is an easily remedied situation.
For Foucault, the purpose of his genealogy is to uncover states of domination in which ‘prac-
tices of freedom do not exist or exist only unilaterally or are extremely constrained and
limited’ (Foucault 1997: 283). In this case, ‘practices of freedom’ means having possibilities
to act in a variety of ways rather than being forced to act in a unilateral way, thereby resisting
totalitarian trends. Butler’s understanding of subversive repetition further guides us in react-
ing to dominating sedimented norms by explaining how such norms maintain themselves,
12 J. MAZE

though it also must be admitted that these are not always easily overturned. One example
(which I understand is somewhat simplistic, but it is solely meant as an illustrative
example) could be the intentions in different forms of national lockdowns, which are
largely engrained in what Foucault terms biopolitical power. On the one hand, massive
crackdowns on protests by enforcing a city-wide or state-wide lockdown has become
almost commonplace in some geo-political locations, as we have seen in places like Hong
Kong or Turkey. These tactics, which employ biopolitical means of repetition, citationality
and sedimentation, work to limit such ‘practices of freedom’. At the same time, the lock-
downs in response to the global 2020 coronavirus pandemic utilised many of these same
tactics to ensure such ‘practices of freedom’ could exist in the future. In other words, the
prior example was aimed at limiting possibilities while the latter was meant to protect pos-
sibilities, additionally illustrating that dispositifs are neither good nor bad, but specific
relations of power can be either positive (enabling) or negative (disabling). In essence, Fou-
cault provides us a genealogical methodology to look at power relations while Butler gives us
a performative framework from which to carry out such a methodology.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This article was supported by the Charles University Grant Agency (Grantová Agentura, Univerzita
Karlova) [494217: Nationalist Violence and Identity in France] as well as a PRIMUS grant
[PRIMUS/HUM/12: Beyond Hegemonic Narratives and Myths. Troubled Pasts in the History
and Memory of East-Central & South-East Europe]. I would also like to thank Aret Karademir
for his guidance and theoretical contributions, all of which made this work possible.

Notes on contributor
Jacob Maze currently a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Department of Political Science,
Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, Jacob Maze received his
BA in English and philosophy from Indiana University and his MA in philosophy from Middle East
Technical University. Having already published on both Butler and Foucault, he primarily tackles
topics in political philosophy dealing political identity and political violence, particularly from a
Foucauldian perspective. His dissertation focuses on establishing a viable model of violence
within Foucault’s theories, utilizing the socio-historical roots of nationalism and national belonging
in specific European contexts and the results this has had on nationalist-inspired violence. This has
required taking a serious look at Foucault-inspired or Foucauldian-sympathetic methodologies,
including actor-network theory, dispositive analysis and various forms of genealogy.

ORCID
Jacob Maze http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1245-5005

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