An “orphan” may seem as objective and universal as possible a category, because such designation stems from existential crisis. Yet such apparent universality, even if it were true, does not translate into any historical insights. It is rather fruitful to follow many different names given to orphans and try to understand the power-knowledge network(s) behind them. This paper traces such different names in the French context that is understood as an amalgam of multifarious and sometimes contradictory practices. Adjectives like exposé, abandonné, and assistéreveal specific ways, in which the respective power-knowledge understood orphans. Each of the epochal moments, such as the absolute monarchy, the French Revolution, the bourgeoning Bourgeois society and the Third Republic, constituted and reconstituted orphans. Modernity may seem only possible comprehensive framework but such postulation is also internally contradictory. Modern social and political theory is premised on the modern individual, who should be considered potential and potent orphan, while modernity as a system of practices has constantly dissolved, reappropriated and reinvented orphans.
An “orphan” may seem as objective and universal as possible a category, because such designation stems from existential crisis. Yet such apparent universality, even if it were true, does not translate into any historical insights. It is rather fruitful to follow many different names given to orphans and try to understand the power-knowledge network(s) behind them. This paper traces such different names in the French context that is understood as an amalgam of multifarious and sometimes contradictory practices. Adjectives like exposé, abandonné, and assistéreveal specific ways, in which the respective power-knowledge understood orphans. Each of the epochal moments, such as the absolute monarchy, the French Revolution, the bourgeoning Bourgeois society and the Third Republic, constituted and reconstituted orphans. Modernity may seem only possible comprehensive framework but such postulation is also internally contradictory. Modern social and political theory is premised on the modern individual, who should be considered potential and potent orphan, while modernity as a system of practices has constantly dissolved, reappropriated and reinvented orphans.
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