The Revival of Bodily Knowledge in Philosophy in an Age of Governmentality and Biopolitics

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This PhD project proposes to investigate how bodily performance can change discourse regarding structural racism. I intend to develop the understanding of how non-verbal performance can manifest political meaning. Here I draw a distinction between verbal and non-verbal communication which is based on the late Foucault's methodology, outlined in his The Archaeology of Knowledge, in which he understood discourse as a combination of the "already-said" and "non-said".1 I seek to expand the theoretical foundations and conceptual resources of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) by focusing on the embodied non-verbal parts of discourse, whereas existing methods of CDA typically analyse the verbal aspects. My hypothesis is that non-verbal communications convey meanings that are inextricably linked to context and affect discourse. I will evidence the importance of non-verbal communication by exploring reasoned examples of the human body communicating critiques of structural racism through gestures, understood as a bodily movement expressive of thought or feeling, specifically in the sporting arena. An example of a gesture explored is genuflection, or kneeling. Genuflection has historically been utilised in religious liturgy or as a demonstration of supplication to one with greater power. However, this act has recently come to symbolise critique of structural racism, which is racism implicit within the framework of socio-political institutions. My project analyses Colin Kaepernick's 2016 bodily performance of "taking the knee" as one central example of this phenomenon and contemplate the meaning transmitted by this gesture in context. Kaepernick's performance brought global attention to a discourse that had previously been localised within the context of the US, regarding the issue of structural racism, exemplified by institutionalised police brutality against minorities. Academic literature on the historical meaning of gestures exists, including Bremmer et al, A Cultural History of Gesture, but non-verbal bodied analysis represents an underdeveloped research field. The impact of Kaepernick's protest is a topic of research, including Zirin's 2021 The Kaepernick Effect. However, this work does not contextualise the historical relevance of kneeling. Therefore, this thesis proposes to develop the scholarship on the meaning of gestures and an interdisciplinary method through which discourses can be critically analysed to better understand the non-verbal forms of resistance against structural racism, and more generally, non-verbal forms of affecting discourse.