Foucault on Power and Knowledge - Summary

Foucault notions about Power/Knowledge appear throughout his writings and the summary here relies on his discussion of it in The History of Sexuality)

Power according to Foucault is a multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization.

Here, Foucault is not referring to a group of institutions that ensure the subservience of citizens of a state, a mode of subjugation as a set of rules, or a system of domination in which there are rulers and the ruled.

According to Foucault, power is omnipresent, not because it embraces everything uniformly, but because it comes from everywhere.

Foucault’s propositions on power:

n  Power is exercised from innumerable points, in the interplay of non-egalitarian and mobile relations

n  Relations of power are immanent in other types of relations

n  Power comes from below – there is no binary opposition between the ruled and the ruler.

n  Where there is power, there is always resistance. Resistance is never exterior to power.

n  One is always inside power. There is a plurality of resistances which exist in the field of power relations.

n  Discourses can be an effect or instrument of power. But they may also be a point of resistance.

n  Discourse transmits and produces power, but it also undermines and exposes it.

“Discourses are not once and for all subservient to power or raised up against it, any more than silences are. We must make allowance for the complex and unstable process whereby discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it.”

From Power/Knowledge:

According to Foucault, right-wing social scientists always perceive power in terms of sovereignty and law. And Marxists see power in terms of the state apparatus.

Foucault, on the other hand, was interested in how power is exercised and what its techniques and tactics were.

With these concerns, he studied psychiatry and penal institutions (prison system). Although these may seem unimportant, for him, psychiatry and penal institutions are essential to the general functioning of the wheels of power.

Foucault’s criticism of two concepts makes clear his understanding of power: the Marxist concept of “ideology” and the Freudian concept of “repression.”

He opposes ideology because this concept always stands against something that is supposed to count as truth.  Ideology always refers to a Subject. It is always secondary to an infrastructure; a material, economic determinant. In Marxism, “base determines superstructure,” that is, the relations of production determine the ideas. As Marx said, “in every epoch, the ideas are the ideas of the ruling class.” Marx and Marxist thought seeks to unravel that ideological stratum to get down to truth, which is the conflictual relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The Subject who is capable of knowing this truth is the working class-in-itself.

Foucault says that, rather than ideologies, he is interested in how “effects of truth” are produced within discourses – which are neither false nor true.

He opposes the concept of repression because this concept is only about the effect of power as repression, that is, “power that says no,” that prohibits. It is a juridical conception of power.

For Foucault, repression is a negative conception of power. And as such, it is incomplete.

*What makes power hold good, what makes people accept it, is that it produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse.

According to his analyses, the “productivity of power” increased after the 18^th century in Europe. A new “economy of power” emerged. Procedures that allowed effects of power to circulate in a continuous, uninterrupted manner emerged.  

Example: In The History of Sexuality, Foucault was concerned with emerging discourses about infant (children’s) sexuality and homosexuality, among other things. It is often considered that the emerging bourgeois society of the 18^th and 19^th century Western Europe repressed child sexuality and homosexuality as undesirable, sick, abnormal, etc., but Foucault rejects this view.

For him, by constantly writing about infant sexuality or homosexuality as a disease, as abnormal, etc., in fact, the medical discourse created an infant sexual identity, it sexualized the parent-child relationship, and also, it created a homosexual identity (as well as a heterosexual one). It should be stressed that until the 19^th century, homosexuality was considered to be an act that a person might engage in the course of his/her life. Although it was condemned, homosexuality was not considered to be an identity. But the medical discourse created a homosexual identity. This opened the way for the creation of a subjectivity around homosexuality, of homosexual desire, etc.  Later, in the second half of the 20^th century, homosexual identity became the starting point for “resistance,” namely, the gay rights movement in the west. 

More about Foucault:

Foucault's Concept of Heterotopia
Michel Foucault  - "The Subject and Power"

Foucault - "Of Other Spaces" - summary
Michel Foucault: Panopticism - Summary
Foucault's Panopticism explained 
Michel Foucault and Marxism
Foucault, Structuralism and post-structuralism
Michel Foucault - ""The History of Sexuality" 

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Summary: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts" (William Shakespeare, "As You Like It")

 Erving Goffman's "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" takes a dramaturgical ,theatre like, approach to social interactions. The question that interests Goffman in how we manage the impression of ourselves within social interactions. He holds that in fact, in social interactions, we always "perform" ourselves. Our theatrical performance of who we are is never a solo act since it depends on the setting ("stage"), audience and the cooperation of other players. For Goffman, this turns any social interaction into a sort of negotiation on the meaning of the situation and the roles of people in it. This means that if I want to be something I need other people to relate to me as that something.

Like in theatre, it is not about what's real but rather about what is perceived as real. In "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" Goffman demonstrates how we use different narratological and symbolic mechanism to shape the manner in which we are perceived and perceive others. For Goffman we do not only negotiate our "characters" but also cooperate in constructing them and setting the stage for them.

Erving Goffman's main point of interest in "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" is the nature of social interaction. When we meet a person we always attempt to draw information about him such as social, economic and marital status, an assessment of his nature an traits, his abilities and so forth. The information we derive allows us to befit our conduct and expectation to that person.

For Goffman, the nature of our social interactions is managing these impressions the same way an actor manages his role on stage. An interesting point Goffman makes is that our social character is always divided in two: the impressions we (actively) make and the impression (passively) creates. One of the ways in which we attempt to present ourselves in everyday life is to have control over the definition of the situation, positioning other people in such positions that they will act in accordance with what we want (think of children playing).  

From the other's point of view they perceive both the manner we try to appear (things we say, for example) and our actual appearance (which could include things we unintentionally give away). Bases on these modes of information people will decide if to cooperate with our definition of the situation or not. Goffman argues that this makes any social interaction a state of negotiation. All participants in the interaction create a "Modus Vivendi" of positions and roles which does not always express true agreement but rather the calculation of needs and abilities within the situation. In any case people can accept, deny or modify our performance of ourselves.

Goffman thinks society is organized by the principle that determines that everyone has certain social characteristics and it is his moral right to expect proper evaluation and treatment. This principle mandates another one holding that people have to be what they claim to be. If someone turns out to be something else, we denounce him. 

See also: Erving Goffman - Stigma and Social Identity (part 2, part 3)

Symbolic Interaction

Erving Goffman's Dramaturgy theory explained

Meaning of Goffman"s Presentation of Self Explained

Alfred Schutz - The Stranger - Summary

"The Stranger: An Essay in Social Psychology" by Alfred Schutz is a notable sociolical essay that picks up on Georg Simmel's notion of the stranger. What is of interest to Schutz is the stranger's integration and assimilation into society. Schutz is referring to all types of such integration into a new group like moving to a new city or joining an exclusive group.

In order to understand Schutz's understanding of the stranger we must first describe how he considers regular members of groups. According to Schutz the member of a group is situated within it and therefore has a set of layers of information which are not completely coherent, are only partially clear and non consecutive. This is all from an objective point of view, but if we turn to the subjective view of the individual which belongs to a group all of these "problem" of knowledge are transparent since groups provide their members with frameworks and groups assumptions that "iron out" all these problems. This is what Schutz calls "thinking as usual", the self evident thought that things will continue the way they are, the inherited knowledge is still applicable, that events are manageable under current knowledge and the thought that others will interpret events in the same manner we do. According to Schutz, if one of these terms fails to be satisfied that particular group will have to undergo change.   

The stranger, on the other hand, does not have to share the aforesaid base assumptions. Everything which is obvious to the group could be questioned by the stranger who lacks the shared ground assumptions. For Schutz this is important since it justifies outside inquiries into societies, enabling to realization of things they cannot see about themselves.

The stranger for Schutz is new to the group. He can share in its present and future but never in its past. His "thinking as usual" is different, and even if he acquires the group's mode of thought he will always have a different base to built it on.  

Georg Simmel - The Stranger - Summary

Georg Simmel's famous and influential essay "The Stranger" introduces the sociological category of the stranger and his social function within groups. According to Simmel's argument the stranger is dissimilar from the wanderer which comes and goes but is rather just one who always has that potential since he doesn't truly and fully belong. The stranger for Simmel is one which is within the bounds of society but wasn't so from the beginning not are there any guarantees that he will to continue to be so. In Margret Mary Wood's words "the stranger is perceived as being in the group but not of the group".

Simmel describes the stranger as one which unites distance and closeness. The stranger's distance renders anything close distant while his closeness renders everything distant close. He is an insider and an outsider at one and the same time and that what makes him so important.

Simmel characterizes a few features of the stranger. To begin with, the stranger is mobile, he has no possessions (both material and social) and therefore has no set position in society. Without property or kinship, the stranger is truely free to move about and connect freely with people from all works of life. Another attribute of the stranger according to Simmel is objectivity which is enabled since the stranger is not bound by the group's conventions and is therefore free to see it without any bias. The stranger's objectivity allows him to be open and free, both intimate and withdrawn, close yet far from the people of the group.

All these features of the stranger make him, Georg Simmel holds, an important function in society like carrying out tasks that no one else can do or hold conversations that cannot be held between two full, non-stranger, members of the group.       

See also:

Georg Simmel – The Metropolis and Mental Life
Georg Simmel / The Problem of Sociology
Alfred Schutz - The Stranger

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Benedict Anderson - Imagined Communities - Short Summary

The book "Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism" by notable political thinker Benedict Anderson is regarded as one of the most important works written about the sources of modern nationalism.

Key to Anderson's understanding of nationalism is the notion of "imagined community", the fact of nationalism being not something material or natural (as often thought) but rather something that exists in the connection between culture and psychology. The national community is defined by Anderson as "imagined" since its members do not personally know each other but yet they bear in their mind the thought of mutual connection. Anderson holds that any community larger than the traditional village is essentially an imagined community.

At the beginning of "Imagined Communities" Anderson argues that in order to understand nationalism we must look at the manner in which national identities have formed over time which can account for why they are so meaningful today. According to Anderson's thesis the development of printing press alongside the Protestant revolution in Europe brought about a large popular readership of non religious, non Latin texts. This had a key role in the development of languages that were mutual to large populations, languages that over through Latin is the dominant language of power.

These new languages, according to Anderson, enabled mutual unified forms of communication that were soon adopted by regimes, thus setting the ground for the appearance of a new form of imagined communities - nationalism. Since someone in the north of modern day France and someone in its south could converse easily, read the same books, same newspaper, abide by the same law, answer to the same courts and eventually serve in the same army against people whose language they cannot understand, they began to imagine themselves as brethren, being part of the same community which was and still is, imagined.    

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Foucault's Concept of Discourse Explained

What is discourse according to Foucault?

The concept of discourse is central to Michel Foucault's philosophy and social thought. According to Foucault discourse is defined by any type of activity of communication and representation (verbal or otherwise) that is conditioned and constrained by a set of explicit and implicit rules that enable any activity and at the same time limit it (it can be compared with Thomas Kuhn's notion of paradigm in science). The system of discourse structures the manner in which we perceive reality, it determines what constitutes right or wrong , defines the range of possible utterances in speech and representation, underlies any capacity to understand or argue, allocates the right to speak and in fact governs over everything that can and cannot be said or know.  According to Foucault discourse is a historical and social product that like language appears synchronically and evolves diachronically (see article on de Saussure's thoughts on language).  

Foucault's discourse theory

Unlike ideology in the Marxist tradition, Foucault's discourse theory does not originate from one defined source of power or social strata, it does not have one specific goal or purpose and there isn't one single function that rules over it. Discourse is not governed by the state (though totalitarian regimes definitely aspired to such control).  Like ideology (especially in Althusser's views on ideology), discourse for Foucault have material existence in the shape of elaborate practices that are governed by the discourse while at the same time generate it. For Foucault discourse can be both positive and negative, repressive and liberating. Everyone of us is the subject of discourse and therefore a part in its construction. In any case, for Foucault there is no social (or even human) existence outside of discourse. Discourse shapes identities, thoughts, wants and needs, positions, normality and abnormality and it manifests itself in every part of our daily life.  

  

Examples of discourse

According to Foucault, discourse refers to the ways in which language is used to construct and reinforce meaning, knowledge, and power. Discourse is not limited to language and can be applied to any manner in which humans produce meaning. 

Examples of concept of discourse:

The discourse of medicine: The way in which medical knowledge is constructed and disseminated through language, including the terms and concepts used to describe diseases, treatments, and the human body.

The discourse of psychology: The way in which psychological knowledge is constructed and disseminated through language, including the terms and concepts used to describe mental states, emotions, and behaviors.

The discourse of politics: The way in which political ideas and ideologies are constructed and disseminated through language, including the terms and concepts used to describe governance, democracy, and political systems.

The discourse of education: The way in which knowledge is constructed and disseminated through language in educational settings, including the terms and concepts used to teach and learn about various subjects.

See also: What is cultural discourse analysis?

More about Foucault:

Foucault's Concept of Heterotopia
Michel Foucault  - "The Subject and Power"

Foucault - "Of Other Spaces" - summary
Foucault on Technologies of Power

Foucault's Concept of Discipline
Foucault on Power and Knowledge
Michel Foucault: Panopticism - Summary
Foucault's Panopticism explained 
Michel Foucault and Marxism
Michel Foucault - ""The History of Sexuality" 
Foucault, Structuralism and post-structuralism

Michel Foucault - "The Subject and Power": Pastoral Power - Summary (part 3)

(Read firsts parts one and two of the summary)

In "The Subject and Power" Michel Foucault relates the modern state's power to what he calls "pastoral power". This is a form of power which assures the redemption of the individual, accompanies his throughout his life, which asks to know not only what he does but also what he thinks and his inner secrets. Think for example of the Catholic confession. since the 18th century the Church is no longer what it used to be but this form of pastoral power hasn't gone with it, says Foucault , it was passed on to the state. States aren't just built "over the heads" of individuals but rather combine them into their structure. They offer individuality on condition that it is an individuality sanctioned by the establishment.

For Foucault, pastoral power, as manifested in the state, no longer aims to redeem people in the next life but rather to insure their well being in this life (their health, security etc.). In addition the state's pastoral power is not limited to institution but rather spreads to the whole social body (like the example of the family). Finally, Foucault says that this form of power generates two types of knowledge: knowledge about the population and knowledge about individuals.

In the final part of "The Subject and Power" Foucault distinguishes between two modern philosophic traditions: a universal one and a critical one. Universal philosophy tries to assert notions about man, Critical philosophy, on the other hand, does not ask "what is man" but rather "who are we at a given time". Towards the end of "The Subject and Power" Foucault offers to divert this question to "who can we be" while refusing "who we are", thus rejecting manners in which modern power structures determine who we are as individuals and as a groups. Political struggles according to Foucault should focus on promoting new modes of subjectivity and rejecting long imposed modes of individuality. If the subject is the product of power it follows that resisting power has to do with thinking of new forms of subjectivity (see for example Judith Butler's "Gender Trouble")  

       

More about Foucault:

Foucault's Concept of Heterotopia

Foucault - "Of Other Spaces" - summary
Foucault's notion of discourse

Foucault on Technologies of Power

Foucault's Concept of Discipline

Foucault on Power and Knowledge

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