The body-mind division itself was produced by new methods of power

Evidence

In the previous two chapters I have been examining new methods of military control, architectural order and schooling, which made it possible for the first time to speak of ‘capturing the bodies’ of a population. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, I have tried to show the emergence in Egypt of a political power that sought not only to capture the individual body but to colonise it and maintain a continuous presence. The words of the French officer indicate something further about this colonising power. As I suggested at the end of the previous chapter, it was a power that seemed to construct its object as something divided into two separate concerns, body and mind. In the following pages I am going to argue that this very division was something new, that it was produced by the new methods of power, and that the essence of these methods was in fact to effect such a separation. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 319

Categorization

• XREF: Directly engages Foucault’s disciplinary power; also connects to the world-as-exhibition theme of the broader book.