{"id":51,"date":"2018-07-16T09:02:30","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T09:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/soc15.epgpbooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/?post_type=chapter&p=51"},"modified":"2018-07-18T07:06:16","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T07:06:16","slug":"knowledge-as-power-and-bio-power","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/soc15\/chapter\/knowledge-as-power-and-bio-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Knowledge as power and bio-power"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n\r\nIntroduction<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

How do human beings become subjects: this is was among Michel Foucault\u2019s primary inquiries. While economic history and theory provided for a way to study the relations of production, and linguistics and semiotics offered instruments for the study of relations of signification, there was no way to study the relations of power. The module traces the various forms of power through history, following some of Foucault\u2019s key texts.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

This module introduces the various ways in which Foucault expanded the dimensions of a definition of power, so that it could be used to study the objectivising of the \u2018subject\u2019. It touches upon the Foucauldian idea of power, its intertwining with knowledge, its grasp over the individual and the population and the possibilities of struggle.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Politicians and ministers, we say, are power hungry. We also often hear of power struggles within political parties and organisations. Most of us have a clear perception of what this power is. But when we think of our everyday interactions\u2014conversations with parents, friends, teachers, and unknown people\u2014we rarely think of them in terms of power.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Yet, we must also analyse our everyday interactions to be able to grasp what power is. According to Michel Foucault, the key to understanding power, and what we mean by power, is to ask the question \u2018How is power exercised?\u2019<\/p>\r\n \r\n

This question may seem banal, but Michel Foucault has the reasons clearly spelled out. \u2018To put it bluntly, I would say that to begin the analysis with a \u201chow\u201d is to introduce the suspicion that power as such does not exist1,\u2019 he says in The Subject and Power<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Let\u2019s take a moment here to think of what we said initially about politicians and ministers being power hungry. What do we mean when we say power hungry, since Foucault says \u2018power as such does not exist\u2019? Politicians, we think then, are interested in occupying the kursi<\/em>. But what does the kursi<\/em>, or any formal position, bestow a person with? A certain amount of influence, over things and people, to put it crudely. Power in that case is the ability to exert influence on others. This is what Foucault means when he says \u2018power as such does not exist\u2019.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

\u2018As far as this power is concerned, it is first necessary to distinguish that which is exerted over things and gives the ability to modify, use, consume or destroy them \u2013 a power that stems from aptitudes directly inherent in the body or relayed by external instruments. Let us say that here it is a question of \u201ccapacity\u201d. On the other hand, what characterises the power we are analysing is that it brings into play relations between individuals (or between groups). For let us not deceive ourselves: if we speak of the power of laws, institutions, and ideologies, if we speak of structures or mechanisms of power, it is only insofar as we suppose that certain persons exercise power over others. The term \u201cpower\u201d designates relationships \u201cpartners\u201d2. \u2019\u00a0\u00a0Power designates relationships between partners, but these same relationships also involve exchange of information. Also, in different relationships, the degree up to which one person (a partner) can influence the other person\u2019s actions\u2014goal-directed activity or objective capacity\u2014is varied. Foucault sees these three aspects\u2014power relations, relationships of communication and objective capacities\u2014as constituting a block. The three are not one and the same, but they are not entirely different either. They overlap and feed into each other towards fulfilling a common end.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n1Faubion, James D, ed. \u2018The Subject and Power\u2019 in Michel Foucault: Power<\/em>. London: Penguin Books 2002. P336<\/strong>\r\n\r\n2Faubion, James D, ed. \u2018The Subject and Power\u2019 in Michel Foucault: Power<\/em>. London: Penguin Books 2002. P337<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n

For instance, lets\u2019 think of the anti-smoking advertisements that play in movie theatres. These ads come on just before the scheduled film is about to begin, when the entire audience has more or less assembled in place. In other words, a captive audience. Besides merely conveying information\u2014smoking is bad\u2014communication here also involves making this information (smoking is bad) a deterrent for smokers. The message to us is: if we\u2019re concerned about our health, we shouldn\u2019t smoke. Yet, this advertisement has limited effect: it can seek to influence our minds, but it can\u2019t prevent us from lighting up once we exit the theatre, which is a no-smoking zone. The sender of the information here does not have the objective capacity to control our actions, but the movie theatre authorities can take action against us for smoking in a restricted area.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Once we come home, the presence of our parents may deter us from lighting a cigarette. We talk to our parents\u2014we have with them a relationship of communication, exchanging information about this and that. Yet, what prevents us from lighting up in front of them, we reason, is \u2018respect\u2019 or the fact that we \u2018don\u2019t want to hurt\u2019 them.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

In the two scenarios, the coordination between the three elements of the block\u2014power relations, relationships of communication and objective capacities\u2014and how each comes into play is different.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

In any society, says Foucault, there is no general type of equilibrium between the three elements. In diverse situations and circumstances, they come together in diverse ways. But there are \u201cblocks\u201d, where the levels of capacities, communication and power are regulated, and adjusted to each other according to broad formulae. He gives the example of an educational institution to illustrate this.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Here, space is designated and divided, there are established rules about the conduct of all participants, each person who is part of the institute has his\/ her own function\u2014all these constitute a block of capacity-communication-power. It has in place activities to ensure all participants learn and acquire behaviour befitting their role: communication (in the form of lessons, orders, displays, different levels of \u2018respect\u2019 shown to different persons) and power processes (in the form of rewards and punishment, close watch over actions, enclosure). These blocks, says Foucault, are \u201cdisciplines\u201d3 and disciplines are one of the key aspects of government\u00a0Following Foucault\u2019s understanding of power, we would have to look at the entire range of relations between different actors in a society to be able to grasp how it is exercised. In other words, we must study relations of power<\/p>\r\n \r\n

3 On disciplines, Foucault says, \u201cThey also display different models of articulation, sometimes giving pre-eminence to power relations and obedience (as in those disciplines of a monastic or penitential type), sometimes to goal-directed activities (as in the disciplines of workshop and hospitals), sometimes to relationships of communication (as in the disciplines of apprenticeship), sometimes also to a saturation of the three types of relationship (as perhaps in military discipline, where a plethora of science indicates, to the point of redundancy, tightly knit power relations calculated with care to produce a certain number of technical<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRelations of Power<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

The exercise of power is not simply a relationship between \u2018partners\u2019; rather, it is a way in which some act on others. Power exists only as exercised by some on others, but this happens within earlier agreed upon structures that demarcate who can do what.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

In the Indian context, caste is one among such structures. A person\u2019s caste position often defines economic status, which impacts every other aspect of life. In a corporate setup, where caste does not matter, the emphasis is placed on spoken English. Even here, although relations of power don\u2019t bring caste directly into play, many lower caste students lose out since they can\u2019t speak fluent English.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Different structures come into play in different situations, thus allowing some to exercise power over others. These relations of power are not violent. Rather, they function by obtaining our consent. But the sometimes, violence becomes necessary to ensure consent: imagine police lathi <\/em>charge on a violent mob. This violence on the part of the police is necessary; otherwise there is a possibility of the mob going on a rampage, of looting, killing, burning. The police, as protectors of citizens and custodians of law and order, lathi<\/em> charges the mob to disperse it, thus saving the rest us from inconvenience, if not outright danger.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Barring this rare display of violence, power works via our consent. In our everyday lives, we are trained to operate according to relations of power. When on the road, we abide by traffic rules. In case we jump a signal, or violate a one-way, or ride without a helmet, we keep an eye out for the traffic cops. We function by accepting by default the rules put in place.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Most of the times, these aren\u2019t written rules; they are norms that express the relations of power in any scenario. For instance, our views on sexuality, or respect for elders. But in every scenario, some exercise power on others within earlier agreed upon structures. And in every scenario, the structures that come into play are different.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nPower\/Knowledge<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

For a long time, kings (sovereign) had the right to decide life and death. As the sovereign, he could legitimately wage a war against the neighbouring state (external enemy) and require his subjects to fight the enemy, which would lead to the death of many. In this sense, he wielded indirect power over the life and death of his subjects.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

At the same time, he could exercise direct power in ordering the death of someone who broke a law or rose in revolt against him. The right of the sovereign, in other words, was formulated as \u201cpower of life and death\u201d. He could take<\/em> life or let<\/em> live.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Wars today are no longer waged in the name of a king (sovereign) who must be defended. Instead, they are waged for the security and well-being of the entire population. Wars today, in the age of global terrorism, are waged in the name of peace. \u201cIt is as managers of life and effects). \u201dFaubion, James D, ed. \u2018The Subject and Power\u2019 in Michel Foucault: Power<\/em>. London: Penguin Books 2002. P 339\u00a0survival, of bodies and the race that so many regimes have been able to wage so many wars4,\u201d says Foucault.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n

\u00a0 The concern for the population in our country and the neighbourhood has become so intense that governments have acquired nuclear warheads. But these nukes are spoken about as deterrents\u2014a presence in the arsenal that will prevent the enemy from launching a similar attack. Today, we must have the capability of finishing off any threat in order to go on living safely.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

This principle of battle\u2014that one has to be capable of killing in order to go on living\u2014was also present in battles involving kings. The difference lies in what must go on living: as opposed to the sovereign, now the entire biological population must go on living.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Foucault says the ancient right invested in sovereign power to take<\/em> life or let<\/em> live was replaced by a power to foster<\/em> life or disallow<\/em> it to the point of death. \u2018Now it is over life, throughout its unfolding, that power establishes its dominion; death is power\u2019s limit, the moment that escapes it; death becomes the most secret aspect of existence, the most \u201cprivate\u201d. 5<\/p>\r\n \r\n

This form of power, whose vocation is to foster<\/em> life or disallow<\/em> it to the point of death, works by intervening meticulously in the lives of individuals, through social processes. It takes care of individuals so as to take care of the population and by extension, the territory. Without the individual, there would be no population, and without population, any territory would be useless. The task of this form of power is to administer life, not take<\/em> life or let<\/em> live.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Foucault says in concrete terms, this power over life evolved in two basic forms starting in the seventeenth century. The first centred on the body as a machine: anatomo-power. It was regulated via a variety of procedures of power or disciplines: an antomo-politics of the human<\/em> body<\/em>. The second formed a little later and focused on the species body or the population. The supervision of the species body was done through a series of interventions and regulatory controls: a biopolitics of the population<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

\u2018During the classical period, there was a rapid development of various disciplines\u2014 universities, secondary schools, barracks, workshops; there was also the emergence, in the field of political practices and economic observation, of the problems of birth-rate, longevity, public health, housing, and migration. Hence there was an explosion of numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations, marking the beginning of an era of \u201cbio-power\u201d6. In the eighteenth century, disciplining of the body was embodied in institutions like the army, schools, education. As for population controls, demography, the evaluation of the relationship between inhabitants and resources gained prominence. Thus, in the development of knowledge itself, Foucault brings in an element of power.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

He said in 1975: \u201cI have been trying to make visible the constant articulation I think there is of power on knowledge and of knowledge on power\u2026 the exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge and, conversely, knowledge constantly induces effects of power\u201d. 7<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n4Foucault, Michel. History of Sexuality Volume 1<\/em>. New York: Vintage Books 1980. P137<\/strong>\r\n\r\n5Ibid. P138<\/strong>\r\n\r\n6Foucault, Michel. History of Sexuality Volume 1<\/em>. New York: Vintage Books 1980. P 140<\/strong>\r\n\r\n7Faubion, James D, ed. \u2018Inttroduction\u2019 in Michel Foucault: Power<\/em>. London: Penguin Books 2002. P <\/strong>xv\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n

\r\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0This challenges the general view on the \u2018evolution\u2019 of disciplines. We are all led to believe, in some sense or the other, that disciplines and knowledge evolved as man made progress and certain aspects of the world became intelligible. Foucault, on the other hand, shows how disciplines and their \u2018evolution\u2019 were tied deeply with politics of the time.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

\u201cThe great biological image of a progressive maturation of science still underpins a good many historical analyses; it does not seem to me to be pertinent to history8. \u201dHe gives the example of medicine, where up until the end of the eighteenth century, here exists a certain type of discourse which changes drastically in matter of 25-30 years. This change in discourse changed the \u201ctrue propositions\u201d, bringing to light things that were not known and accounted for earlier. But at the same time, and more importantly, it changed the ways of seeing, speaking about and classifying people as patients, of different kinds and suffering from varied diseases. In The<\/em> Birth of the Clinic<\/em>, he shows how medicine\u2014an exalted science, unlike the much vilified psychiatry\u2014was deeply enmeshed in social structures.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Like medicine, the regulation of madness has also undergone a host of changes. The classification of those who have been considered mad at certain times has undergone changes, and the rules and prescriptions for their treatment have also changed drastically, he shows in Madness and Civilisation.<\/em><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Another example of the interweaving of effects of power and knowledge is seen in the case of sexuality. The deployment of sexuality in the nineteenth century shows how the two poles\u2014 anatomo-politics and bio-politics\u2014although they appear to target separate entities, are joined in the form of concrete arrangements9.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The campaign against homosexuality and the view of homosexuals in the second half of nineteenth century made possible \u2018a whole series of interventions, tactical and positive interventions of surveillance, circulation and control\u2019. All books on child medicine and pedagogy during the eighteenth century spoke about children\u2019s sex constantly and in every possible way. The effect of this was two-fold: it made parents believe that their children\u2019s sex was a fundamental aspect of their parental educational responsibilities, and it made children believe that their relationship with their own body and their own sex was to be a fundamental problem through their lives. Sexuality, and the regulation of sexuality over centuries, says Foucault, is one of the \u2018positive products of power\u2019.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

It is important to note the emphasis on positive product of power here. We have earlier said that power does not exist in isolation, nor is it something that happens by force. Instead, its works via consent, via subjects reproducing the power relations according to previously agreed upon structures. The reason power can be thought of in positive terms is because it produces certain kinds of individuals, in this case individuals who think and view their sexuality in a certain way.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

\u2018What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn\u2019t weigh on us as a force that says no; it also traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. It needs to be considered as a productive network that runs\u00a0through the whole social body, much more than as a negative instance, whose function is repression. 10\u2019<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n8Faubion, James D, ed. \u2018Truth and Power\u2019 in Michel Foucault: Power<\/em>. London: Penguin Books 2002. P113-114<\/strong>\r\n\r\n9Foucault, Michel. History of Sexuality Volume 1<\/em>. New York: Vintage Books 1980. P 140<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n

\r\n\r\nBiopower<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

If we go back again to the point where we started, talking about politicians and ministers being power hungry, or of power struggles within organisation and parties, we will see that we speak of power in the negative. This is because a new economy of power was established beginning in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During this period, the monarchies developed great state apparatuses and accorded itself a juridical function\u2014it framed decrees and laws, and presented itself as a refree, punishing those who did not abide by its laws. In this way, for those who were placed under watch, power assumed a negative function. This association continues to this day, despite the fact that the king has been ousted and government has become a matter of the state.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The \u201cart of government\u201d first emerged in the middle of the sixteenth century. Beginning then, we find a variety of treatises presented not as \u201cadvice to the prince\u201d, as was the case earlier. Instead, these treatises that kept appearing till the end of the eighteenth century proffered views on the \u2018art of government\u2019.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Government, as understood in this period, included government of oneself, the government of souls and lives by the church, the government of children and the government of the state by the prince. The texts there fore dealt with questions that spanned how to govern oneself, how to be governed, how to govern others, who is legitimised to govern and how to become the best governor. Two important historical processes intersected at this point that accounted for the broad scope of the treatises on government.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

One, the structures of feudalism collapsed, leading to the formation and establishment of territorial, administrative and colonial states, giving rise to questions about the government of the population and the territory. Two, the Reformation and Counterreformation gave rise to questions about how one should govern oneself, and lead his\/her life on earth in order to achieve eternal salvation.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The treatises during this period were concerned with establishing continuity in the upward and downward directions with regards the art of government. In the upward direction, the individual who wishes to govern the state must first learn to how to govern himself, his goods and his family. Only when he learns to do this can he become qualified to govern the state. This ascending line characterises the pedagogies of the prince.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Downward continuity, on the other hand, ensures that in a well-run state, the head of the family will know how to look after himself, his family, and his goods. This downward line deals with the transference of the principles of good governance of the state to the level of the individual, and was effected through what was called \u2018police\u2019.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

A text from eighteenth century France lists out the various aspects of life the police is supposed to look after. This text, a compendium of administrative practices used by civil servants, is divided into eleven chapters that deal with religion; morals; health; supplies; roads, highways and buildings; public safety; liberal arts; trade; factories; manservants and factory workers; and 10Faubion, James D, ed. \u2018Truth and Power\u2019 in Michel Foucault: Power<\/em>. London: Penguin Books 2002. P 120\u00a0the poor. Police, therefore, has a very broad function compared with today and its activities affected every aspect of an individual\u2019s life.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n

The importance accorded to police during this period is evident in the fact that it soon developed as a discipline, in the academic meaning of the word. It was taught in various universities in Germany. Foucault analyses a manual for the students, Elements of Police<\/em> by von Justi, to show how the activities of police were theorised. Justi made an important distinction in this book between what he called police and politics. Politics, for him, was the negative task of the state, and focussed on fighting internal and external enemies of the state, using the law and the army respectively. Police, according to Justi, had a positive task: their instruments are not weapons or decrees. Instead, they function by making specific, permanent and positive interventions in the behaviour of individuals. The police here are supposed to foster the citizen\u2019s life and the state\u2019s strength. Although the semantic distinction between police and politics has vanished thereafter, the problem of the modern state intervening in social processes and each and every aspect of a citizen\u2019s life carries on to this day.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

At the end of the eighteenth century then, the true object of the police was the population. It needed to take care of living things as living things, and its power was over life. This power over life is what is called bio-power, and its vocation is to \u2018foster<\/em> life or disallow<\/em> it to the point of death. Foucault draws out the \u2018logic of formation which takes hold when power takes species\u2019 life as its referent object, and the securing of species; life becomes the vocation of a novel and emerging set of discursive formations of power\/knowledge. 11\u2019<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The period between the ends of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries saw a shift in political rationality. This was also a period when the state started intervening more and more in the lives of individuals, as the happiness of the individual was no longer seen as the goal of the state, but one of the prerequisites for the continuance of the state. The importance of life problems in political power therefore increased substantially, and a host of human and social sciences developed that dealt with the problems of individuals inside a population. Statistics was one such area.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nGovernment and economy<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

The art of government that became an important aspect in the sixteenth century did not find the material conditions that were necessary for its further development. In fact, Foucault says that a host of processes in the eighteenth century is what gave this discourse a further push and led to the development of the science of government. Important among these processes were the demographic expansion of the eighteenth century, increasing abundance of money, and the expansion of agricultural production. Economy at this point, became refigured and centred on what we understand as the economic today.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Back in the sixteenth century, economy was centred on the family, and dealt with the correct way to manage individuals, goods and wealth within the family. This is something every father (head of the family) was expected to do as regards his wife, children and servants. Management of the family required strict attention to meticulous detail, and the treatises on art of government from this period were concerned with ways of introducing this attention to meticulous detail in the management of the state. In this way, economy provided the continuity\u2014the link between 1Dillon, Michael and Lobo-Guerrero, Louis. \u201cBiopolitics of security in the 21st century: an introduction\u201d. Review of International Studies <\/em>Vol 34. No. 2 (Apr 2008): P 267\u00a0management of the individual, his goods <\/span>and the state. The art of government, therefore, dealt principally with <\/span>introduction of <\/span>economy in political practice. 12<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n

By the end of the eighteenth century, family is no longer the object of power. Instead, it is species life or population. The problem of population and of dealing with population gives a fillip to the discipline of statistics, which had thus far worked within the administrative frame provided by mercantilism. Statistics is gradually used to study various factors and regularities in population, including rates of births, deaths, diseases, cycles of scarcity etc. Phenomena like epidemics, endemic levels of mortality, spirals of labour and wealth\u2014made intelligible through statistics\u2014show how they are no longer reducible to the unit of the family. It also becomes possible to see how phenomena tied to population have economic effects. The family therefore disappears as the model of government. In the government of population, the target and instrument is two-fold: interests as consciousness of each individual who makes up the population and interests in the sense of interest of the population as a whole that may run counter to some individual interests.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

It is thus that the art of government transitions in the eighteenth century into the science of government, or political science. It gives birth to new tactics and techniques centred on biopower that \u2018deals with the population, with the population as a political problem, as a problem which is at once scientific and political, as a biological problem and as a power\u2019s problem\u2019. 13<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Foucault has no doubt that bio-power was an indispensable element in the development of capitalism. Capitalism could develop because the body as machine had been inserted into production and population was subject to adjustment according to economic processes.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nThe subject<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

Although power and the intertwining of power\/ knowledge is considered among Foucault\u2019s most important contributions, he has clarified that analysis of power isn\u2019t the goal he has pursued. Instead, he has sought to study the various modes by which human beings are made subjects, and the analysis of power is one of the modes of inquiry into this aspect. For instance, the various relations of power an individual is part of during childhood provide him\/her with security, pleasure, care and guidance. Yet, at the same time, they also teach him what is expected of him, the behaviours that are appreciated et al. These, and other relations of power, play a role in human beings becoming subjects.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Foucault identifies three modes of objectification that transform human beings into subjects. The first is modes of inquiry that try to give themselves the status of sciences. For instance, the objectivizing of the speaking subject in linguistics and philology; or the objectivizing of the labouring subject in economics; or the objectivizing of being alive itself in biology and natural history.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n12Faubion, James D, ed. \u2018Governmentality\u2019 in Michel Foucault: Power<\/em>. London: Penguin Books 2002. P 207<\/strong>\r\n\r\n13Foucault,Michel. Society Must Be Defended.<\/em> London: Penguin Books, 2003. P245<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n

The second mode is the objectivizing of the subject in what he calls \u201cdividing practices\u201d. Here, the subject is divided inside himself, or from others, and this process objectivizes him. Examples of this are criminals\/ good boys, mad\/ sane, sick\/ healthy, poor\/ rich.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The third mode is the way in which a human being turns himself or herself into a subject. Sexuality, the way one recognises one\u2019s place in the field of possible sexualities is one example of this.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Foucault became involved with the question of power because he saw a gap in the way the subject was conceived. As subjects, we are placed in relations of production and signification, but at the same time, we are also placed in immensely complex relations of power. These relations of power have a large bearing on our placement in the relations of production and signification.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Yet while economic history and theory provided for a way to study the relations of production, and linguistics and semiotics offered instruments for the study of relations of signification, there was no way to study the relations of power. \u201cIt was therefore necessary to expand the dimensions of a definition of power if one wanted to use this definition in studying the objectivising of the subject. 14\u2019<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Foucault clarifies that he is not interested in a theory of power, since a theory assumes prior objectification. But at the same time, the analytical work cannot proceed without a conceptualisation\u2014one that is always ongoing, subject to constant checking.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

One of the ways of understanding power relations, suggests Foucault, is by taking forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point. Resistance can function as a chemical catalyst in the study; it can bring to light power relations, locate their position, tell us about the methods used to quell the resistance and their point of application.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

In thinking thus about power in the 1970s, Foucault contested the two accepted conceptions of power at the time. One was the neo-Marxian idea that bourgeoisie, capitalist power is propagated partly through ideologies or pseudo-knowledges. The other was the neo-Freudian idea that power acts like a lawgiver that forbids and represses15.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Foucault has often been accused of exaggerating the effectiveness of, among other things, the modes of subjectification. Society\u2019s panoptic schemes\u2014constant vigil on the population (biopolitics) and bodies within the population (antomopolitics) to ensure the security of one and all\u2014are seen to be too overpowering in Foucault\u2019s analyses, thus leading some to question whether there is any point at all in struggles against these schemes16.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Yet, the analysis of the very powers that curtail us opens up possibilities of challenging the same powers. By analysing power relations, and therefore showing how the conditions of the present that we take for granted are actually contingent and arbitrary, we can awaken ourselves to an endemic struggle.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n14Faubion, James D, ed. \u2018The Subject and Power\u2019 in Michel Foucault: Power<\/em>. London: Penguin Books 2002. P327<\/strong>\r\n\r\n15Faubion, James D, ed. \u2018Introduction\u2019 in Michel Foucault: Power<\/em>. London: Penguin Books 2002. P xix<\/strong>\r\n\r\n16Faubion, James D, ed. \u2018Introduction\u2019 in Michel Foucault: Power<\/em>. London: Penguin Books 2002. P xx<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nFurther reading<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

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