Developing a theoretical framework to understand teacher’s subjectivities and emotionality
2.4 Subjectivity and Foucault’s theory of power and technologies of the self
2.4.1 Foucault’s theory of power: Domination, resistance and knowledge
Central to Foucault’s theories of power and technologies of the self are the notions of power, knowledge and subjectivity, which I outline in the discussion that follows. Foucault’s (1977;
1980; 1982; 1984; 1988; 1997a) studies explore the concept of power, how individuals exercise power and the effects of power. Foucault rejects the notion that the dominant class or state possesses power and does not conceptualise power as a structure or institution; instead, for Foucault, power entails the strategy, multiple relations or techniques that individuals invest in and transmit. Power, in his later work, is redefined as a technique which individuals engage in and, in his view, modern power is productive rather than repressive. Thus, Foucault proposes that power should be analysed as ascending from the micro-level rather than as diffusing from a macro-institutional level. Foucault expands on Heidegger’s notions of the influence of modern technology on the type of subject produced, and elaborates on four interconnected ‘technologies’:
(i) Technologies of production which allow individuals to produce, change or manipulate.
(ii) Technologies of sign systems whereby individuals use signs and symbols.
(iii) Technologies of power/domination which control the conduct of individuals, subjecting them to domination and objectivising them as subjects.
(iv) Technologies of the self, whereby individuals on their own or with help from others regulate their body and soul, thoughts and conduct in order to transform themselves.
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For Foucault (1988, p. 18), ‘technologies of power’ control and regulate an individual’s conduct and “submit them to certain ends or domination, an objectivising of the subject”.
Discipline, Foucault contends, entails ‘practices of control’ which constitute professional knowledge systems from past practices intended to shape or moderate behaviour (Power, 2011). Disciplinary power, Foucault asserts, is achieved through three means, namely, hierarchical observation, normalizing judgement and examination.
Hierarchical observation, for Foucault, refers to continuous surveillance which makes individuals observable and visible, and draws attention to the link between visibility and power. The spacio-temporal organisation of the military camp, Foucault (1977; 1982) argues, is designed to facilitate observation, thereby rendering those being supervised more visible and giving those supervising more power. Similarly, the HIV and AIDS classroom has
“organised and arranged space to facilitate observation of those within” through “a hierarchy of continuous and functional surveillance”, that enhances the efficiency of teaching (Smart, 2002, p. 86). Foucault contends that the activities of teaching, acquiring knowledge by pedagogical activity, and hierarchical observation are inextricably linked.
Foucault contends that normalising judgement aims to punish and correct non-conforming or bad behaviour thereby achieving disciplinary power. According to Foucault (1977, p. 187):
The workshop, the school, the army were subject to a whole micro- penalty of time (lateness, 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 (1977; 1982) suggests that punishment may be physical, humiliate or deprive the non-conforming subject. Although these non-conforming behaviours are punished, Foucault adds that good behaviour or conduct is rewarded with privileges through gratification. By this, he means that rules and norms operate through a system of gratification and punishment, allowing subjects to be ranked, graded or differentiated with regard to their behaviour and ability.
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The techniques of hierarchical observation and normalising judgement, for Foucault, coalesce to form the third instrument of disciplinary power, namely, the examination. Smart (2002, p.
86) puts it this way: the examination results in a ‘normalising gaze’ that allows subjects to
“be classified and judged”. It is through these examination rituals and documentation, Foucault asserts that individuals are constituted as subjects.
Foucault’s theory of power entails his notions of power/domination, power/resistance and power/knowledge. According to Foucault (1980, p. 39), “power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives”. In other words, Foucault views power as useful since it is productive and produces individuals and reality. To Foucault (1980, p. 98), individuals do not possess power, instead, “individuals are the vehicles of power” and operate through power. This means that Foucault views power as a technique or act that individuals exercise or engage in. Foucault argues that technologies or techniques of power, which intend to regulate and control subjects, often result in resistance to power. Foucault contends that power should be examined in relation to this resistance, and suggests that resistance could lead to liberation. Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982, p. 147) explain Foucault’s notion of power and resistance this way:
Power needs resistance as one of its fundamental conditions of operation.
It is through the articulation of points of resistance that power spreads through the social field. But it is also, of course, through resistance that power is disrupted. Resistance is both an element of the functioning of power and a source of its perpetual disorder.
Power, Foucault (1977; 1980) asserts, is dispersed throughout the social system and is closely related to knowledge. According to Foucault, institutions such as the asylum, prison or school, provide contexts or spaces where power can be exercised as well as ‘laboratories’ to observe and accumulate knowledge about subjects in these spaces. By this, he means that spaces where power is exercised are also spaces where knowledge is produced. For Foucault, discipline as the means of power reorganised institutions like prisons, hospitals and schools into organisations, and reinforces the cyclical relationship between power and knowledge, resulting in the emergence of various branches of knowledge or disciplines, like pedagogy
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and psychiatry. Foucault (1977, p. 27) puts the inextricable link between power and knowledge this way:
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 maintains that the relationship between power and knowledge is closely interwoven:
technologies of power and surveillance produce knowledge about subjects, which in turn, is used to control and correct their behaviour, making them objects of scientific knowledge and analysis. By this, he means that knowledge generated justified and formed the basis and technique of power. Foucault draws attention to the ‘micro-mechanisms’ of power that operate, usually unnoticed, in institutions, such as schools, prisons, and hospitals, in society as well as in our personal lives. According to Foucault (1977, p. 185), the link between disciplinary power and knowledge relations is exemplified by “the subjection of those who are perceived as objects and the objectification of those who are subjected” and incorporates
“a whole domain of knowledge, a whole type of power”. While religious knowledge and truth has power in ancient societies, Foucault argues that scientific knowledge and truth, the human sciences in particular, are dominant and privileged in modern societies.
Foucault’s notion of power-knowledge draws attention to discourses and documents that
“enmesh people as subjects of disciplines and that in so doing, recursively form subjectivities and practices” (Power, 2011, p. 43). Although Foucault analyses discipline as a form of power in prisons which aims to produce docile individuals, like Besley (2005a), I contend that his notion of disciplinary power offers possibilities to make sense of schools and teaching and opportunities to explore issues of surveillance, power relations, and production of knowledge as well as resistance to power. The consequence for this study is to examine the power exercised by teachers within spaces of the HIV and AIDS classroom and, as a result, the knowledge about HIV and AIDS that is produced. The preceding discussion expanded on Foucault’s notion of technologies of power/domination and the relation between power and knowledge. His ideas on technologies of the self and subjectivity are delineated in the discussion that follows.
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2.4.2 Foucault’s theory of technologies of the self: ethics of care of the