Conceptual framework – a Foucauldian lens
3.3 Foucault’s conceptualisation of power practices/effects
3.3.1 Forms of power practices
Foucault differentiated between sovereign power and other forms of power. He proposed that, as the power of the sovereign diminished over time, other forms of power have come to play a role in directing the actions of subjects. Sovereign power was possessed by the ruler and was exercised through laws and edicts. The sovereign had the right to take life or let live; “sovereign power is a power which deduces. It is the right to take away not only life but wealth, services, labour and products” (C. Taylor, 2011, p. 41). As sovereign power became increasingly ineffective due to socio-political and economic changes, other forms of power rose to the fore. Foucault’s concepts of disciplinary power, biopower and
power/knowledge are discussed below; pastoral power – the focus of this study – is discussed in more depth following an overview of some of Foucault’s other conceptual tools.
3.3.1.1 Disciplinary power
Disciplinary power concerns the construction of individual subjects and does so through targeting bodies (Hoffman, 2011, p. 28). Disciplinary power strives to make the body “more obedient as it becomes more useful” (Foucault, 1979, p. 138). Foucault identified three major disciplinary techniques through which individuals can be known and classified:
hierarchical observation, normalising judgement, and the examination. These techniques are very evident in many modern institutions, including education.
By hierarchical observation (the gaze), Foucault was referring to the way environments are constructed to render individuals visible, with the Panopticon (an architectural design by Jeremy Bentham) the ultimate expression of this process of subjection. The design of the Panopticon made it possible for an anonymous observer to constantly observe inmates.
Foucault argued that this constant visibility structured their conduct (Hoffman, 2011). He proposed that the gaze is multi-directional, with individuals ultimately observing their own behaviour. This is “an inspecting gaze which each individual under its weight will end by interiorising to the point that he is his own overseer, each individual thus exercising this surveillance over, and against, himself” (Foucault, 1980c, p. 155).
Through normalising judgement, the visible subject is judged according to prescribed norms, where norms serve to identify behaviour as normal or abnormal. Through normalising judgement, disciplinary power punishes non-conformity and rewards ‘good’ conduct. These normalising practices are pervasive in society:
The workshop, the school, the army were subject to a whole micro-penalty of time (latenesses, absences, interruptions of tasks), of activity (inattention, negligence, lack of zeal), of behaviour (impoliteness, disobedience), of speech (idle chatter, insolence), of the body ('incorrect' attitudes, irregular gestures, lack of cleanliness), of sexuality (impurity, indecency).(Foucault, 1979, p. 177)
The examination combines both hierarchical observation and normalising judgement “to effect a ‘normalising gaze’ through which individuals may be classified and judged” (Smart, 2002, p. 81). This disciplinary technique also involves the individual in documentation;
through this mass of documents they are captured and fixed (Foucault, 1979, p. 189).
Through the examination, individuals are classified and distributed and in so doing are made into cases.
3.3.1.2 Bio-power
Foucault used the term bio-power to describe a power over life (of both individuals and groups). Bio-power is concerned with administering the well-being of populations. Foucault (2007) explains that by bio-power, he means the mechanisms by which our biological human features became the object of scrutiny and strategy. Bio-power functions through norms which are dispersed throughout society and internalised by subjects. From a Foucauldian perspective, concerns about the age of the population, birth and death rates, neonatal morbidity, reproductive practices are all examples of the operation of the
apparatus (‘dispositif’) of bio-power.
3.3.1.3 Power/knowledge
Foucault conceived of knowledge and power as mutually interdependent. Power and knowledge co-constitute each other:
[P]ower and knowledge directly imply one another … there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations. (Foucault, 1979, p. 27)
Feder (2011) argued that questions are an important mechanism for constituting
knowledge. Foucault was interested in what kinds of questions could be asked at any given time in history, and with what effect. Foucault used the term ‘power/knowledge’ to
illuminate that what counts as truth or knowledge is constructed, not decreed from on high by an authority; rather, it is the kind of knowledge that is “‘recognised as true’, ‘known to be the case’” (Feder, 2011, p. 56). For Foucault:
Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its
regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements; the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true. (Foucault, 1980c, p. 131)
Foucault differentiated between two types of intellectual – the universal and the specific.
Traditionally, the role of revealing the truth has fallen to the universal intellectual, but Foucault argued that ordinary people have knowledge of their own circumstances. Thus, the universal intellectual, as bearer of theoretical and moral values, has been replaced by the specific intellectual who has specific localised knowledge (often a profession) and who participates in everyday struggles with the politics of truth. Those with disciplinary
knowledge and those with local knowledge are stakeholders of truth. This truth “is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A ‘regime’ of truth” (Foucault, 1984, p. 74).