“A minimum of domination”—the overt normative orientation of Foucault's work

Abstract Answering the charge of ‘crypto‐normativity’ that has long overshadowed Michel Foucault's work, I argue that this work is animated by an overt normative orientation to keep domination to a minimum. This orientation operates both at the level of content and form. It tends to be overlooked or dismissed because critics have certain blinders on about what it is to do philosophy and social critique—or so I suggest. I clarify the important distinction Foucault draws in a late interview between power and domination. As part of this, I unearth a hitherto overlooked further distinction between states and effects of domination. And I show that Foucault's way of writing—aiming to produce transformative experiences in himself and readers—reflects his endeavours to avoid obscuring and fixing power relations; and that this means to take critical reflection even further, encompassing not just external power relations but how intellectuals frame their role in speaking truth to power. It is particularly in relation to effects of domination—our accepting given power relations as if they were inevitable and fixed—that theorising can contribute to our practices of freedom. On the proposed reading, it is on this that Foucault's work aptly focuses.