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Digital Carnivalesque pp 151–167Cite as

Power As Constantly Reconstituting and the Prospects of Carnivalesque Politics

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Part of the book series: Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education ((CSTE,volume 10))

Abstract

In this chapter, I return to the key theorizations of power that I discussed in the earlier part of this book. I begin broadly by examining the usefulness of Foucauldian governmentality as a theory of power in explicating the modus operandi of Singapore’s PAP government in curbing free speech in the country’s media space. I then move on to examine the limitations of Foucauldian governmentality and Bourdieusian cultural perspective specifically in the area of artistic and literary performance. Next, I theorize contemporary power relations in vernacular digital discourses by foregrounding two important aspects: the emergence of information brokers and the affective dimension in power relations. In the final section, I theorize on the potentials of carnivalesque as subpolitics and as well as tool of social critique in the context of Singapore.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Hoi-Yi Katy Kan

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Kan, HY.K. (2020). Power As Constantly Reconstituting and the Prospects of Carnivalesque Politics. In: Digital Carnivalesque. Cultural Studies and Transdisciplinarity in Education, vol 10. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2051-8_8

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