Technologies of the Body Week 6. Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Technologies of the BodyWeek 6

Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

OutlinePower / knowledgeDisciplineSurveillanceNormalisationPanopticismConfessionFeminism and Foucault

Power / knowledgeMove from repressive power to power as

diffuseKnowledge is never neutralPower and knowledge are joined by discourseInseparable from resistancePower is productive

Docile BodiesFrom monarchical punishment to disciplinary

punishment“A body is docile that may be subjected,

used, transformed and improved.” (p. 136). “Discipline increases the forces of the body

(in economic terms of utility) and diminishes these same forces (in political terms of obedience).” (p. 138)

Docile Bodies“Discipline is a political anatomy of detail.”

(p. 139)The distribution of people in spaceThe control of activity

“Precision and application are, with regularity, the fundamental virtues of disciplinary time” (p. 151)

“Time penetrates the body and with it all the meticulous controls of power”. (p. 151)

Height / Weight chart

Docile Bodies“Discipline is a political anatomy of detail.”

(p. 139)The distribution of people in spaceThe control of activity

“Precision and application are, with regularity, the fundamental virtues of disciplinary time” (p. 151)

“Time penetrates the body and with it all the meticulous controls of power”. (p. 151)

Docile Bodies“Exercise is that technique by which one

imposes on the body tasks that are both repetitive and different, but always graduated.” (p. 161)

“Exercise, having become an element in the political technology of the body and of duration, does not culminate in a beyond, but tends towards a subjection that has never reached its limit.” (p. 162)

Surveillance“The exercise of discipline presupposes a mechanism

that coerces by means of observation.” (170).

“The power in the hierarchised surveillance of the disciplines is not possessed as a thing, or transferred as a property; it functions like a piece of machinery. And, although it is true that is pyramidal organisation gives it a “head”, it is the apparatus as a whole that produces “power” and distributes individuals in this permanent and continuous field. This enables the disciplinary power to be both absolutely indiscreet, since it is everywhere and always alert, since by its very principle it leaves no zone of shade and constantly supervises the very individuals who are entrusted with the task of supervising; and absolutely ‘discreet’, for it functions permanently and largely in silence.” (177).

NormalisationDiscipline has the function of reducing gaps –

punishment as “exercise”.“The distribution according to ranks or grade has a

double role: it marks the gaps, hierarchizes qualities, skills and aptitudes; but it also punishes and rewards.” (p. 181)

“The perpetual penality that traverses all points and supervises every instant in the disciplinary institutions compares, differentiates, hierarchizes, homogenizes, excludes. In short, it normalizes.” (183)

Compulsory visibility (it is the subjects who are seen)

Panopticism

Panopticism“Visibility is a trap” (p. 200)Bentham – power should be visible and

unverifiable.“He who is subjected to a field of

visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.” (p.202)

ConfessionThe History of Sexuality: An Introduction

(1978)Seeking absolutionDemonstrating knowledge / acceptance of the

normsRecommitment to “exercise”

Feminism and FoucaultFraught relationshipFoucault as exclusive / elitistNo specific discussion of genderNeutral analysis of power / truth / sexuality –

tells us how power works, but not about who has easiest access to it, and why.

Feminism and FoucaultOver-emphasis on power as productive /

centrality of resistance (Bordo 1993)“We need to recognise that the symbols of

resistance in these advertisements are included by advertisers in the profoundest of cynical bad faith; they pretend to reject the objectification of women and value assertiveness, while attempting to convince women who fail to embody dominant ideas of (slender, youthful) beauty that they need to bring themselves into line.” (Bordo 1993: 198)

Feminism and FoucaultValuable analysis of how power worksSex / bodies as social, discursive

constructionsThe body as a focal point of powerPossibility of bodies resisting powerMeans of taking difference between women

into accountPower and pleasure not seen as mutually

exclusive, or as cancelling each other out.

Jana Sawicki (1991: 83)Disciplinary technologies can be understood

as … “producing new objects and subjects of knowledge, by inciting and channelling desires, generating and focusing individual and group energies, and establishing bodily norms and techniques for observing, monitoring, and controlling bodily movements, process and capacities.”