Abstract
The history of public health is one of the major themes of the genealogy of governmentality developed by Michel Foucault. In order to connect it with today’s environmentalism, it is effective to focus on the Progressive Era America. Two examples of repetition/transformation of political rationales in that time are presented and examined here. Jane Addams asserted that her municipal housekeeping activity was a natural development from the traditional charity, sick visiting. This replacement of the pastoral gaze on individuals by the governmental concern for the ‘population,’ was akin to the one that Foucault discovered in ‘the police’ of the 17-18th century Europe. Gifford Pinchot’s conservation movement, transforming the utilitarian principle of maximum happiness, extended the target of governmental concern, to the generations which includes not only the present but also the future ones. John Muir’s pastoral discourses yielded some part of the basis of this rationale. These examples show how pastoral practices co-operate with the modern environmental governmentality.
