The Construction of Power in China Miéville’s Novel The City & the City
Umut ErdoğanThe novel The City and the City by British writer and academician China Miéville is a combination of science fiction, weird fiction, and crime genres. The novel reflects Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Two imaginary cities, Besźel and Ul Qoma, represent the opposing poles. Besźel differs from the Western, liberal, and developed Ul Qoma with its governance and lifestyle similar to Eastern Bloc countries. Meanwhile, although they exist in the same place spatially, Besźel and Ul Qoma are forbidden to one another. The citizens of the two cities are not allowed to perceive anything about the other city. The novel offers a critique of established dualisms in Western philosophy. The knowledge of societies is built through exclusions and discriminations. The knowledge of the two cities, constructed metaphysically, is forbidden to one another. The knowledge of the opposition of the two cities is supported by a disciplinary discourse. Social practices that constantly maintain and reproduce the distinction between the two cities are ensured by the continuity of surveillance in Besźel and Ul Qoma. The organization in the novel called Breach is the force that watches over the two cities. In the novel, the knowledge of distinction is the knowledge of power. The discourses developed by the power to protect itself ensure its survival. As two separate societies that are constantly controlled and disciplined, the two cities also serve as examples of the strengthening of power through surveillance in the modern period. In this context, this study aims to evaluate the construction of power and knowledge of power in The City and the City. For this purpose, the study presents an evaluation of how knowledge of power is constructed and used in the modern tradition of thought with support from Foucault’s views on discourse and power.
China Miéville’’in Şehir ve Şehir Romanında İktidarın İnşası
Umut Erdoğanİngiliz yazar ve akademisyen China Miéville’in Şehir ve Şehir adlı romanı bilim kurgu, tuhaf kurgu ve polisiye türlerinin birleşiminden oluşmaktadır. Roman, Sovyetler Birliği’nin dağılmasından sonra Avrupa’nın içinde bulunduğu iki kutbu yansıtmaktadır. Hayali olarak kurgulanan iki şehir, Besźel ve Ul Qoma, bu iki kutbu temsil etmektedir. Besźel, Doğu Bloğu ülkelerine benzeyen yönetim ve yaşam tarzıyla Batıcı, liberal ve gelişmiş Ul Qoma’dan ayrılmaktadır. Öte yandan mekansal olarak aynı yerde yaşamalarına rağmen iki zıt kutup olan Besźel ve Ul Qoma birbirine yasaktır. İki şehrin vatandaşlarının diğer şehre dair hiçbir şeyi algılamamaları gerekmektedir. Roman, Batı felsefesinde yerleşik düalizmlerin bir eleştirisini sunmaktadır. Yasaklar, dışlamalar ve ayrıştırmalar ile toplumların bilgisi inşa edilmektedir. Metafizik biçimde birbirlerine yasak olarak kurgulanan iki hayali şehrin bilgisi ise iktidarın gücünü göstermektedir. İki şehrin karşıtlığının bilgisi, disipline edici bir söylemle desteklenmektedir. İki şehir arasındaki ayrımı sürekli koruyan ve yeniden üreten toplumsal pratikler ise Besźel ve Ul Qoma’daki gözetimin sürekliliği sayesinde sağlanmaktadır. Romanda yer alan İhlâl adlı örgüt ise iki şehri gözetleyen güçtür. Romanda ayrımın bilgisi, iktidarın bilgisidir. İktidarın kendisini korumak için geliştirdiği söylemler ise hayatta kalmasını sağlamaktadır. Sürekli kontrol edilen ve disipline edilmeye çalışılan iki ayrı toplum olarak iki şehir, romanda modern dönemde iktidarın gözetim yoluyla güçlenmesinin de örneğidir. Bu bağlamda bu çalışmada, Şehir ve Şehir romanındaki güç ve gücün bilgisinin inşasına dair bir değerlendirme yapılması amaçlanmıştır. Bu amaçla Foucault’nun söylem ve iktidar üzerine görüşlerinden destek alınarak, iktidarın bilgisinin modern düşünce geleneğinde nasıl inşa edildiğine ve kullanıldığına dair bir değerlendirme sunulmuştur.
As a product of social interaction, knowledge is not independent of power relations. Historically constructed knowledge in society is also a tool for control and discipline, as well as a vital necessity for protecting the continuity and reproduction of information. Preserving the knowledge of the government is possible by adopting it in social life. What makes power possible is those who consent and internalize knowledge. In this respect, discourses of power are dependent on preservation and reproduction within the practices of life.
As a discourse, modernity has produced its own knowledge as a means of social control. The knowledge of the modern period has been placed in a superior position through discourses because historical developments have created a need to control and direct people more tightly with information. The audience and interaction area governments can control have expanded. After the Renaissance, the knowledge of the modern period was especially organized in a way that enabled the control of closed spaces. Controlling, confining, and monitoring people has begun to develop bureaucratically alongside modernity. Surveillance has become an integral part of modern societies over time. For this reason, Foucault, from whose thoughts the study benefits, evaluated modern society as a disciplinary society.
In modern society, individuals are in conflict with power. The power actually needs this conflict and tension in order to maintain its existence. The need for power to be opposed is what brings it into being. However, as the tension between individuals and power increases, the power gains more control and discipline. For this reason, power tends to strengthen its own knowledge. This is why dualisms are important in organizing ways of thinking and living in the modern period. Dualistic thought shapes concepts in the modern period in the West and draws the boundaries of thinking and knowledge by establishing them on the basis of opposition. The system of thought built on opposites is a Western philosophy. Dualities strengthened by opposing concepts also build each side’s knowledge.
Contrasts also are found in British author China Miéville’s (2009) novel The City and The City. Two cities with separate structures are found in opposition to one another. As examples of the founding oppositions of Western metaphysics, the two cities simultaneously exclude and marginalize one another. People living in the cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma, who have to live as two different entities in a common space, are not allowed to see or perceive the other. Otherwise, they would be committing a major crime. These are two cities that are opposite each other in terms of culture, economics, philosophy, and politics. The two cities are also off-limits to each other. Miéville, a Marxist writer, reflects his own ideology in this novel as both a criticism of the modern era and a questioning of the dominance of the global capitalist system in the world order. The work falls under the genre of science fiction genre and has a fiction that also touches on power relations in cities and power struggles in the international arena.
Conflict and tension always occur between the powers that protect the knowledge and the citizens of the two cities. The novel also describes a rupture that occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The city of Besźel is a city that bears the traces of a period that still continues after the Soviet Union. Besźel resembles Eastern Bloc countries in terms of government and lifestyle. Meanwhile, Ul Qoma is a liberal Westernizing city open to globalization.
In The City and The City, a murder investigation is underway. Borlú, a detective living in Besźel, is tasked with investigating this murder. The events that begin with the discovery of an unidentified body turn into an interrogation of two cities. The novel questions the knowledge of power with regard to the cities. This process resembles a criticism of the knowledge of the modern period and makes sense of the existence of opposites. A power is found that will exist as long as the two cities are in opposition. The knowledge of the power established through differences and exclusions is also the explanation for the dualist construction of the cities. The novel offers an example of modern thought patterns in the context of power relations and surveillance.
This study has analyzed Miéville’s (2009) novel The City and The City. The study also offers an analysis of knowledge and power relations in the modern period, benefiting from Foucault’s thoughts on power for this purpose. The study examined how control and discipline have been established in the modern period, as well as the dependence of knowledge on power relations. As a result, the study criticizes the instrumental position regarding how the construction of knowledge of power has transformed in the modern period.
