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
2.4.2 Foucault’s theory of technologies of the self: ethics of care of the self and aesthetics of existence
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2.4.2 Foucault’s theory of technologies of the self: ethics of care of the
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taboos as well as produces sexual pleasures. Practices of the self, for Foucault (1984), refer to
‘aesthetics of existence’ and ‘techniques of life’. Drawing on Greek philosophy and ethics, Foucault suggests “the idea of a non-normalising ethics based upon personal choice rather than social or legal imperatives” (O’Leary, 2002, p. 7).
Foucault’s practice of technology of the self, Sharpe (2005) argues, has parallels with Kant’s practice of critique; and contends that ‘critique’ should be read as a ‘technology of the self’.
Sharpe (2005, p. 101) goes on to analyse ‘critique’ “as a modern ‘technology of the self’ that stands in the line of older methods of askesis”, that is, the ethical process through which individuals form and transform their self. Foucault’s ethical turn led to the development of an analytic grid or model used to analyse ethical practice or modes of self-constitution which comprise four key facets, namely, the ethical substance, the mode of subjection, the practices of the self or techniques of the self and the mode of being (telos) or way of life (O’Leary, 2002, p. 12; Sharpe, 2005).
I contend that these four facets have significance for this study and can be related to the teaching of HIV and AIDS education as well as point to the link between subjectivity, ethics and emotions, which I highlight later in this chapter. The first facet or ethical substance relates to the part of the teacher, such as actions, feelings or desires that should be addressed in their constitution of the self and moral practice of teaching. The second facet or mode of subjection entails why the teacher engages in the task of teaching about HIV and AIDS and is related to personal choice. Does the teacher teach in response to prescribed norms, a divine
‘calling’, or being part of a professional community? Practices of the ‘self’ comprise the third facet and involve the tools or techniques that teachers draw on as they are constituted as ethical subjects in their teaching of HIV and AIDS. The fourth aspect, the mode of being or telos relates to the way of life or kind of person their HIV and AIDS teaching constitutes. The shift in the modes of ethical self-constitution, especially related to sexual behaviour, formed the major focus of Foucault’s later studies.
Ethics, for Foucault, is closely entwined with action or agency. Luna (2009, p. 145) makes this link explicit: “In Foucauldian ethics...we are dealing with a person who acts. We do not separate the person from his acts”. In other words, Foucault’s notions of technologies of the self and ethics of care of the self attempt to resolve not only how individuals constitute their
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ethical subjectivity but also why they act in particular ways and not in other ways. This means that there are multiple modes or ways in which different individuals constitute their ethical subjectivity. Therefore, each individual constitutes his/ her ethical subjectivity in relation to one’s “customs and traditions, the norms and values one’s society upholds, one’s religious beliefs and convictions and many other factors” (Luna, 2009, p. 146).
Foucault (1997b, p. 262) puts the trajectory in his thinking this way:
Three domains of genealogy are possible. First, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to truth through which we constitute ourselves as subjects of knowledge; second, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to a field of power through which we constitute ourselves as subjects acting on others; third, a historical ontology in relation to ethics through which we constitute as moral agents.
Subjectivity, a key concern of this study, is also a significant concept in Foucault’s theory of power and technologies of the self. For Foucault (1977), subjectivity has a dual meaning, referring to both being a subject and being subjected to by others. To Foucault, the subject is discursive and produced in text or power/knowledge, while subjectivity denotes the subjected experience. Foucault argues that subjectivity is constituted within discourse or discursive practices. Discourse, Foucault contends, denotes a group of statements. Foucault’s perspective on subjectivity and power is challenged as rejecting the notion of agency or action and the ability of subjects to resist power (Fraser, 1989; Hartsock, 1990; Power, 2011).
However, Besley (2005a) and Zembylas (2003a) argue that Foucault’s notion of subjectivity does not exclude the potential for agency, since Foucault (1977) cautions that although the subject is the origin of agency, the subject is also subjected to strategies of power and resistance that may constrain or enable its action or agency. Foucault (1997a, p. 95) puts it simply: “where there is power there is resistance”. Therefore, for Foucault, agency is defined in conjunction with power and resistance. However, Power (2011) points to the criticism that Foucault does not adequately address the structure-agency dialectic and draws attention to the shift in his notion of agency: from passive, docile subjects in his earlier work to ethical subjects who incorporate autonomy and resistance into their practice in his later work.
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In Foucault’s earlier work, subjectivity is viewed negatively as deterministic and indirectly bound to power relations, denying human subjects agency and the ability to emancipate themselves from power relations. However, his notion of subjectivity evolves in his later work incorporating notions of technologies of the self and ethics of care of the self, and a view of human subjects as capable of critical self-reflection, thereby affording them agency and the ability to change or transform their circumstances or surroundings. It is this later notion of Foucault’s subjectivity that I adopt in this study.
For Foucault (1985; 1997a), as agents we have the capacity to produce ourselves and challenge societal norms and identities. He argues that the freedom we exercise in ethical conduct does not liberate the self from all social influences; instead it is freedom to transform ourselves in our social contexts and produce ourselves as works of art. Thus, Foucault contends that by challenging and being critical of established norms and identities, we produce ourselves through our ethical conduct, and that we should be free to be part of or distance ourselves from the collective group that we are supposed to belong to, as well as free to resist imposed identities. In other words, Foucault’s studies on ethics of care for the ‘self’
emphasise the value of different forms of agency which enable individuals to oppose normalising or conforming behaviour associated with modern power. Agency, for Foucault, is thus inextricably linked with critical reflection and freedom. This means that as agents, individuals are able to critically reflect on and question social norms and imposed identities thereby developing their individual style. An analysis of Foucault’s ethics of care for the self therefore has import for this study, which aims to explore the agency of HIV and AIDS teachers and how they produce their flexible identities and individual styles and make innovative, ethical choices in their teaching of HIV and AIDS.
The term ‘government’ broadly denotes different means by which human beings are constituted as subjects (Foucault, 1991). While Foucault’s earlier work on prisons, asylums and clinics focuses on ‘government of others’ and the processes that subjected individuals to power, his later work focusses on how modern societies govern people, that is, the ‘art of governing people’, ‘government of self’ and practices of self-constitution or freedom, which he terms ethics. In other words, Foucault’s concern shifts to how individuals are supervised or controlled by their set of truth obligations, which are related to how they constitute and transform their ‘self’. Since this study focuses on HIV and AIDS education, Foucault’s
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notion of practices of the self, related to ethics and morality, would be pertinent in analysing how teachers approach this subject in the classroom.
Aesthetics of existence or ascetic practice of self-formation, Foucault contends, refers to the
“exercise of self upon the self by which one attempts to develop and transform oneself and to attain a certain mode of being” (Foucault, 1997a, p. 282). Foucault (2001) expands on ‘games of truth’ and ‘parrhesia’ which are different forms of Greek cultural practices that link truth telling and education, and influence constitution of the self or subjectivities. For Foucault (2001), truth-telling parrhesia or candid, frank speech, is used in education to illustrate the crucial role of education in the ‘care of the self’. Foucault draws on Socrates’ four questions related to truth-telling and philosophical problems, namely, “who is able to tell the truth, about what, with what consequences and with what relation to power” (2001, p. 170). Given that this study explores teachers’ subjectivity and HIV and AIDS education, I believe that these questions about truth telling interlinked with education and cultural practices are pivotal in order to understand if teachers are capable of telling the truth about HIV and AIDS, what content they select to teach and the influence this has in the classroom when teachers constitute their subjectivities within relations of power in their teaching about HIV and AIDS.
Bevir (1999) puts the shift in Foucault’s notions of power and agency this way: Foucault’s earlier studies on violence and discipline suggest that subjects are dominated and denied the ability to act, while his later studies on ethics of care for the self and governmentality recognise that subjects have the capacity to resist power and therefore have agency.
Similarly, Besley (2005a, p. 4) highlights the shift in his notion of how individuals become subjects “from his early emphasis on the political subjugation of ‘docile bodies’ to his later emphasis on individuals as self-determining beings who are continually in the process of constituting themselves as ethical subjects”. The notions of power and agency adopted in this study resonate with that of Foucault’s later studies, which I contend is significant to analyse and interpret teachers’ subjectivity and practice of teaching about HIV and AIDS education.
However, Foucault (1988) contends that modern power allows individuals to use their agency solely to regulate and normalise their behaviour in accordance with societal norms.
Therefore, Foucault argues that individuals need to be liberated from the state as well as the individualising effect of the state, and contends that his work on ethics of care for the ‘self’, offers types of resistance that need to be developed to bring about such liberation and
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freedom. However, individuals need the space to develop these types of resistance. The capacity for agency and freedom, he argues, is only exercised when individuals challenge moral rules and resist normalising behaviour and develop their personal ethical practice.
Linking the capacity for agency and freedom to this study, HIV and AIDS teachers need to question moral rules and normalising behaviour in relation to HIV and AIDS and encourage learners in their class to do so as well. Furthermore, teachers need to exercise their agency and freedom by deciding what to teach about HIV and AIDS from the relevant curricula and use creative methods and activities to teach the selected information, thereby developing an ethical practice and personal style of teaching in relation to their subjectivities, which Foucault (1997a) referred to as an ‘aesthetics of existence’. Teachers therefore need to question and challenge the traditions and practices associated with HIV and AIDS in their classrooms, communities and society.
Foucault is regarded as “one of the most original thinkers of the post-war years” who has made significant contributions across disciplines due to “the power of his analysis” and
“fruitfulness of his approaches” (Besley, 2005a, p.vii). The consequence is that numerous scholars have been inspired by his ideas or analytic approaches in a range of disciplines.
Besley (2005a; 2005b) applies Foucauldian perspectives to examine counselling and moral education of youth. She employs Foucauldian notions of confession, archaeology, genealogy, power-knowledge, governmentality, technologies of domination and of the self, subjectivity and ethics of care of the self and acknowledges the crucial role that institutions and schools in particular play in regulating and governing experiences of the self and others.She argues that school policies and curricula, as well as teachers’ constitution and practice of the self, greatly influence the professional and ethical actions of teachers. I believe that Besley’s study is significant to this study since both draw attention to how teachers constitute their selves as well as professional and ethical issues which influence their practice. In the same vein, Esin (2009) argues that women in Turkey construct multiple subject positions within the complexities of socio-cultural contexts, power relations as well as class and educational background. Employing a contextual analysis, she draws on Foucault’s notions of technologies of power, technologies of resistance and technologies of gender in order to examine how micro narratives of women’s sexuality are linked to political, historical and socio-cultural contexts of macro narratives. Similarly, Infinito (2003) adopts Foucault’s
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notions of care of the self and ethical self-formation in his study on moral education, emphasising that technologies of the self are crucial in the constitution of an ethical self.
Fenwick (2003) adopts Foucauldian notions of governmentality, pastoral power and technologies of self to explore the influence of teachers’ professional growth plans on how they negotiate their knowledge, identities and practice. She analyses how teachers’
professional growth plans through disciplinary power liberate or repress their identities and practice. She suggests that their professional growth plans constitute teachers as agents of change producing particular identities and knowledge such that “teachers become self- regulators of their own subjectivity” (Fenwick, 2003, p. 350).She nevertheless challenges the power dynamics which mobilise or repress some of their actions and desires. Dixon (2007) adopts Foucauldian notions of disciplinary power, governmentality and technologies of the self as well as Soja’s (1996), Lefebvre’s (1991) and Foucault’s (1984) concepts of space and time to explore how critical, creative, literate embodied subjects are constituted in the spaces of the Foundation Phase classroom. She emphasises the crucial role of teacher control and surveillance. Bevir (1999) draws attention to shifting notions of agency in Foucault’s work.
He differentiates between an excitable Foucault who rejects the subject as agent, declares the subject dead and disregards intentional and creative performances; and a composed Foucault who rejects autonomy and suggests that subjects are constituted within contexts of power relations. In addition to this, Bevir (1999) makes a useful distinction between biopower, as a discipline of the body, and pastoral power which refers to the influence of the consciousness of relevant laws and norms which regulate subjects. Next, I highlight the significance of Foucault’s contributions for this study as well as the limitations of his work.
2.4.3 Significance and limitations of Foucault’s theory of power and