ABSTRACT
Most contemporary interpreters of Foucault agree that his relation to structuralism is significant. However, it is usually treated as a reflection of the intellectual Zeitgeist of post-war France. In interviews given around the publication of The Order of Things (1966), Foucault defines himself as ‘the choir boy of structuralism’ and describes its importance in increasing the scientific status of the humanities. How then did Foucault move from being ‘the choir boy’ of structuralism in 1966 to claiming that ‘he had nothing to do with structuralism’ a decade later? I argue that the events of Tunis ‘68 and his increased political engagement in the following years rendered difficult his relations with the ‘neutral’ structuralism of figures such as Lévi-Strauss and Lacan. Moreover, it is Foucault’s methodological commitment to his newly formulated idiosyncratic concept of struggle that led him to a complicated relation with both structuralism and Marxism. I use the example of his relation to Althusser in order to show that the concept of struggle as a localized, corporeal, constantly changing form of social relation blocks both structural and Marxist analyses as Althusser practiced them and leads Foucault to a critical appropriation of both.
