Bourdieu and Foucault
Module 8
Pierre Bourdieu - 1930 – 2002
French sociologist
Born August 1, 1930 in
Denguin, Pyrénées-
Atlantiques, France
Grandfather was a
sharecropper, and father was
a postman, later postmaster
Married Marie-Claire Brizard
in 1962
Had three sons
Died January 23, 2002 in
Paris, France
Academic Career
Studied philosophy in Paris at the École Normale Supérieure
He worked as a teacher for a year
Established sociological reputation with ethnographic research
while in French Army during Algerian War of Independence
(1958-62)
1964+ Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes
Études
1968 until death, headed Centre de Sociologie Européenne, a
research center founded by Aron
1975 edited sociological journal, “Actes de la recherche en
sciences sociale,” with Luc Boltanski
1981 until retirement, Chair of Sociology at Collége de France
Bourdieu’s Key Claims
1. Social class is the elementary social fact
2. We continue to live in highly stratified,
class-based societies
3. Society works to keep the upper classes
powerful and the lower classes powerless
4. A lot of this happens unintentionally; not
deliberate manipulation by the powerful
According to Bourdieu capital
is…
Inherited from the past and continuously
created
Accumulated labour in a materialised,
embodied (‘incorporated’) or immanent form,
which when appropriated on a private, i.e.
exclusive basis, by agents or groups of
agents, enables them to appropriate social
energy in the form of reified or living labour
In ‘fields’, the positions of actors (individual or
institutional) are defined by the distribution of
capital and the rules that govern this
Bourdieu’s forms of capital
Economic capital - access to income, wealth
or property (Marx’s understanding)
Cultural capital: embodied (in persons), objectified
(e.g. art), institutionalised (e.g. university degrees)
Social capital: resources grounded in durable
exchange-based networks of persons
Symbolic capital: capability of actors to use certain
practices symbolically to defend or maintain their
positions in social space (prestige/status)
Conversions of capital
Bourdieu argues the different types of capital
can all be derived from economic capital.
These ‘transformations’ are not automatic but
require effort, and the benefits often show
only in the long term. ‘Profits in one area are
necessarily paid for by costs in another’ (e.g.
wealthy parents purchase cultural capital/
social capital in independent schools)
The other three forms of capital are not
entirely reducible to economic capital – they
have their own specificity – but ‘economic
capital is at their root’.
- Bourdieu, ‘The forms of capital’, in Richardson (ed.) Handbook
of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education,
1986
Bourdieu on social capital
‘Social capital is the sum of the resources,
actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual
or a group by virtue of possessing a durable
network of more or less institutionalised
relationships of mutual acquaintance and
recognition’.
- Bourdieu and Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology,
1992, p. 119
Note ‘durable’ - and the emphasis on immanent social capital, on
potential benefits/ capacity as well as actual, visible, realised
benefits (as woulkd be preferred by, say, economics). Bourdieu’s
concept of capital is distinctive
‘ Social capital provides … a
“credential” which entitles
them to credit’
‘Social capital… provides each of its [the
group’s] members with the backing of the
collectively-owned capital, a “credential”
which entitles them to credit…’
- Bourdieu, ‘The forms of capital’, in Richardson (ed.) Handbook
of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, 1986
Suggestive of the role of education…
In social groups held together by
mutual self-interest
‘The profits which accrue from membership in a
group are the basis of the solidarity which
makes them possible’.
Quantification of social capital
‘The volume of the social capital possessed
by a given agent thus depends on the size of
the network of connections he/she can
effectively mobilise and on the volume of the
capital (economic, cultural or symbolic)
possessed in his/her own right by each of
those to whom he/she is connected’.
Note that greater network size is positive but the quality of the
‘nodes’ is crucial
The value of social capital is
derived from prior inequalities/
exclusions
‘The structure of the field, i.e. the unequal
distribution of capital, is the source of the
specific effects of capital’.
Bourdieu’s social capital is constituted by the socially powerful and
depends on the normality of practices of inequality and social closure
But must be continually
created and reproduced
‘The existence of a network of connections is not a natural
given, or even a social given … it is the product of an endless
effort …’
‘The social capital accruing from a relationship is much greater
to the extent that the person who is the object of it is richly
endowed with capital… they are sought after for their social
capital..’
The profitability of this effort rises in proportion to the size of
the capital
But must be continually created
and reproduced
‘an investment in sociability is necessarily long-
term’
and therefore is costly
Social Class is made up of…
Not only of economic
capital
BUT also:
Symbolic capital: social
status, prestige, and respect,
which may come from one’s
occupation and education
Social capital: social
connections and networks
Cultural capital: skills,
education, worldview, and
ways of doing things
(habitus)
Cultural capital
Cultural capital is a key sphere for
reproducing class domination.
Access to education and success in schools
are a good example of the power of cultural
capital.
That schools value the cultural capital of the
dominant class.
The relationship between cultural
capital and high educational
credentials
cultural capital good academic
performance
Occupation high
With high economic educational
And cultural capital credentials
Cultural capital
Cultural capital: social assets, including
knowing how to dress, language competency,
and knowledge of art and music, forms of
knowledge -> any cultural advantage a person
has which give them a higher status in society,
including high expectations.
Parents provide children with cultural capital,
the attitudes and knowledge that makes the
educational system a comfortable familiar place
in which they can succeed easily.
CULTURAL Capital:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=1V2VPyRCW_M
The Achievement Gap????
How does Bourdieu’s theory of
“Cultural Capital” connect to the
Achievement Gap???
Bourdieu & The Achievement
Gap:
One of the main strengths of the theory is that it
does to some extent focus on how structures
and institutions play a part in social
reproduction of inequality.
With so much focus now on the individual, it
seems that so often inequality and disadvantage
are seen as the result of an individual’s actions.
Social Reproduction of inequalities
- Successful actors have large amounts of the
right sort of capital for the fields they are in
- They pass that capital onto their children
- (Opposite: unsuccessful actors pass onto their
children small amounts of useful capital and
large amounts of useless capital)
Cultural capital and social capital appear as
invisible privileges for upper middle class
and elite kids in modern Western
educational systems.
Social Reproduction
Against the conventional view:
- Meritocracy: intelligence & diligence
- Social mobility
Educational success =
- Having the right sort of capital
- Cultural Capital (CC)
- High CC => good qualifications
- Elites use CC to get large amounts of
educational capital (good qualifications)
Social Reproduction of inequalities
Bourdieu argued each generation acquires
cultural capital (tastes, habits, expectations,
skills, knowledge, etc.) that help us to gain
advantages in society.
This cultural capital either helps or hinders us as
we become adults.
Introduction to Sociology: Social 24
Class and Inequality
Centrality of education in
reproducing forms of capital
‘Because the question of the arbitrariness of
appropriation arises most sharply in the
process of transmission – particularly at the
time of succession, a critical moment for all
power – every reproduction strategy is at the
same time a legitimation strategy aimed at
consecrating both an exclusive appropriation
and its reproduction’.
Education a principal instrument of legitimation
‘The scope of the educational
system tends to increase’
‘As an instrument of reproduction capable of
disguising its own function, the scope of the
educational system tends to increase, and
together with this increase is the unification of
the market in social qualifications which gives
rights to occupy rare positions’.
Though education can also
enable the retrieval of pre-
modern forms of social power
The closures provided by certain kinds of
institutional educational structure, such as select
schools, enable families and kinship networks to
reassemble and reassert their social power
Comments about cultural capital
“Bourdieu states that cultural capital consists of
familiarity with the dominant culture in a society,
and especially the ability to understand and use
‘educated’ language. He argues that the
possession of cultural capital varies with social
class, yet the education system assumes the
possession of cultural capital. This makes it very
difficult for lower-class pupils to succeed in the
educational system.” (Sullivan 2001:893)
Comments about cultural capital
“In sum, Bourdieu’s view is that cultural capital is
inculcated in the higher-class home, and
enables the higher-class student to gain higher
educational credentials than the lower-class
student. This enables higher-class individuals to
maintain their class positions, and legitmates the
dominant positions that they typically go on to
hold. Of course, some lower-class individuals
will succeed in the educational system, but,
rather than challenging the system this will
strengthen it by contributing to the appearance
of meritocracy.” P.(Sullivan 2001: 895)
the Aesthetic Disposition
“a relatively large proportion of the
highest-qualified subjects assert their
aesthetic disposition by declaring that
any object can be perceived
aesthetically.”
Distinction, p. 39
•lower classes: “deformed hands” “arthritis”
•upper classes: “symbol of toil” “beautiful”
TASTE
EDUCATION
home school
(inherited (acquired)
cultural
capital)
Michel Foucault (1926~1984)
Biography of Michel Foucault
Born Paul-Michel
Foucault Oct 15 1926
in Poitiers, France.
Father was a surgeon
and wanted him to
follow the same
career path. He
attended school
earlier than the
average age with his
older sister. He grew
up during WWII,
being aged 14 during
the Nazi invasions.
After the war Foucault gained entry
into the prestigious École Normale
Supérieure, the traditional gateway
to an academic career in the
humanities in France.
During his time at ENS he suffered
acute depression. During this time
he chased another student with a
knife, attempted suicide and also
revealed his homosexuality. In this
period he saw a psychiatrist and
subsequently became fascinated by
Psychology and began reading
Freud and the Kinsey reports.
Gaining a degree in psychology
along with a degree in Philosophy,
he became obsessed with
Rorschach tests and when he began
teaching the subject, often subjected
his students to them.
Joined communist party in 1950, but was not a very active member.
After briefly teaching at ENS he took up a position teaching Psychology at
the University of Lille from 1953-1954.
Foucault’s first book ‘Mental Illness and Psychology’ was published in
1954, a work which he would later disavow.
In 1954 Foucault served France as a cultural delegate to the University of
Uppsala in Sweden, where he began the research for his next publication
‘Madness and Civilisation’ coming across influences such as Nietzsche
and the musician Jean Barraqué, undertaking a relationship with the
latter. In 1958 Foucault left Lille for brief positions in Warsaw and
Hamburg Universities. (Foucault was advised to leave Warsaw after a
sexual encounter with a young man who was working for the police.)
Nietzsche’s message was, ‘the truth about oneself was not something
given, something which we have to discover, it is something we must
create ourselves.’ Nietzsche’s stress on the central role of power in all
human activity struck Foucault like a thunderbolt.
Age 34 Foucault returned to France to
complete his doctorate in Philosophy at the
University of Clermont-Ferrand where he
met Daniel Defert, an extreme leftist, 10
years his junior, with whom he lived a non-
monogamous partnership for the next 25
years. In 1959 he was writing ‘Madness
and Civilisation’.
He gained his doctorate with two theses
and was regarded as ‘the new Kant’.
Major thesis- ‘Madness and Insanity:
History of Madness’ in the Classical Age.
Secondary thesis- a translation and
Rorschach Test commentary on Kant’s anthropology from a
pragmatic point of view, ‘Madness and
Insanity’.
His second book, ‘Birth of the Clinic’ was
published in 1963. When researching for
this book he read every book on clinical
medicine published between 1790 and
1820.
After Defert was posted to Tunisia for military service, Foucault moved to a
position at the University of Tunis in 1965. Here Foucault taught about
Nietzsche, Descartes and Manet.
In 1968 he returned to France, publishing ‘The Archaeology of Knowledge’.
Foucault became the head of Philosophy at the University of Paris VIII at
Vincennes in the same year, appointing mostly leftist academics, whose
radicalism provoked the Ministry of Education to withdraw the department’s
accreditation. He also joined student revolts and fights with the authorities.
Foucault and Defert joined students making barricades after being prevented by
the police from watching films about 1968, and was arrested. This time was a
turning point in his political activism.
In 1970 Foucault was elected to France’s prestigious academic body ‘Collége de
France’ as ‘Professor of Systems of Thought’ a self appointed title. Foucault
delivered a series of lectures in France and was also invited to lecture in Tokyo
and at the University of California Berkeley.
Foucault helped found ‘The Prison Information Group’, for prisoners to voice
their concerns. His political involvement increased during this time and his work
became more politicized, with the publication of ‘Discipline and Punish’, about
western prison and school systems.
Foucault embarked on a 6 volume project ‘The history of Sexuality’, which he would
never complete. Volume 1. ‘The Will to Knowledge’ was published in 1976, the
second and third volumes didn’t appear for another 8 years, the second not being
published until 1984. Foucault’s approach and focus on the subject surprised
readers.
Foucault began spending more time in the U.S.A at the University of Buffalo and U.C
Berkeley.
In 1975 he took L.S.D and experimented in other drug taking. He took an acid trip in
the desert and was nearly run down attempting to cross a freeway while high on
morphine. He justified his behaviour on theoretic grounds.
1979 Foucault made two tours of Iran, interviewing political protagonists who
supported the new interim government after the Iranian Revolution. His controversial
essays on Iran were published in the Italian paper ‘Corriere Della Sera’, but not
translated until 1994.
Foucault died of an AIDs related illness in 1984 in Paris. He was the first high profile
French personality reported to have AIDs, when little was known about the disease,
causing controversy.
Prior to his death, Foucault destroyed most of his manuscripts and prohibited the
publication of any he may have overlooked.
Bibliography of works
Year English Title
1954 Mental Illness and Psychology
1955 Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
1963 The Birth of the Clinic: An Archeology of Medical Perception
1964 Death and the Labyrinth: the World of Raymond Rouselle
1966 The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences
1969 Archeology of Power
1971 The Discourse on Language
1975 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
1976 The History of Sexuality: Vol I: The Will to Knowledge
Vol II: The Use of Pleasure
Vol III: The Care of the Self
Book: Discipline and Punish
This book is a study
through time of the soul
and body in political,
judicial and scientific fields,
particularly in relation to
punishment and power
over, and within the body.
Foucault charts the shift in
punishment from the
spectacle of public torture
before the 1800s to
obsessive over-regulation
in prisons.
The Body of the Condemned
Foucault begins by comparing a public
execution from 1757 to an account of prison
rules from 1837. The shifts between the two
reveal how new codes of law and order
developed. One important feature is the
disappearance of torture. Punishment as
spectacle disappeared; the exhibition of
prisoners and the public execution ended. Now,
the certainty of punishment, and not its horror,
deters one from committing a crime.
Torture
Mid-18th century
Spectacular (literally) assault on body
Intentional pain
Marking the body
Person as “mark-able”
Since the end of 18th century sentences are intended to correct
and improve.
Punishment no longer touched the body. If it did, it was only to
get at something beyond the body: the soul.
New figures took over from the executioner, such as doctors,
psychiatrists, chaplains and warders.
Executions were made painless by drugs. If a prisoner is
condemned to death now, the prisoner is injected with
tranquilizers. ‘Take away life, but prevent the patient from
feeling it, deprive the prisoner from rights, but do not inflict
pain.’
The elimination of pain and the end of spectacle were
linked. Machines like the guillotine, which kills almost
without touching the body, were intended to be painless.
Between 1830 and 1848, public executions ended.
The penalty for crime now focused on the soul. Judgment
was now passed on the motives and instincts of the
criminal. Offences became objects of scientific
knowledge. The development of a new penal system in
Europe led to the soul of the criminal as well as the crime
being judged.
The power to punish changes. Psychiatrists now decide
on a criminal's treatment. The adoption of these non-legal
elements meant that the judge is not the only one who
judges.
The spectacle of the scaffold
The French penal system of 1670 set out very harsh penalties. Public
execution and torture were not the most frequent form of punishment, but
torture played a considerable part.
Torture is an ancient practice, which had its place in the classical legal
system. Classical torture was a way of finding evidence in which
investigation and punishment were mixed. A public execution is a political as
well as a judicial ritual.
Attitudes toward punishment were related to general attitudes to the body
and death. Death was familiar because of epidemics and wars. These
general reasons explain the possibility and long survival of physical
punishment. The truth-power relation remains at the heart of all mechanisms
of punishment, and is found in different forms in contemporary penal
practice.
A key element in the execution was the people or audience. But the role of
the people was uncertain. Criminals often had to be protected from the
crowd, and crowds often tried to free prisoners. The intervention of the
crowd in executions posed a political problem. In his last words, the convict
could, and did, say anything.
Newspapers began to recount the details of everyday
crime and punishment. The people were robbed of their
old pride in crime, and murders became the game of the
well-behaved.
Generalised punishment
Petitions against executions and torture increased in the
eighteenth century. Execution became shameful and
revolting. The need for punishment without torture was
formed as a need to recognize the humanity of the
criminal. The eighteenth century resolved the problem
with the idea that humanity was the measure of
punishment.
There were fewer murders, and criminals tended to work
in smaller groups. They moved from attacking bodies to
seizing goods. This can be explained by better socio-
economic circumstances and harsher laws. Eighteenth
century reform of the criminal law was a rearrangement
of structures of power. It aimed not to punish less but to
punish better. Sometimes laws were ignored, and
exemptions were made.
The eighteenth century reform presumed that the
citizen has agreed to the law by which he is
punished. The right to punish has shifted from the
sovereign to the defence of society.
The object of punishment is to create
consequences for crime. Punishment must be
adjusted to the nature of the crime. The
eighteenth century, had the idea that one should
punish just enough to prevent recurrence.
The gentle way in punishment
A suitable punishment is a deterrent that robs the
crime of all attraction by finding a suitable
opposition. An immediate link between the crime
and punishment is necessary. Punishment must
decrease the desire for crime and increase the fear
of the penalty. Penalties cannot be permanent: the
more serious the crime, the longer the penalty. The
punishment should be directed at others, not just
the criminal. The penalty is a representation of
public morality.
Prison shortly became the essential
punishment. In the French penal code of 1810 a
hierarchical prison structure was planned.
Corrective punishment, acts on the soul.
Docile bodies (Disciplined Bodies)
The prison system arrives as part of a
disciplinary society. Punishment followed new
rules and resulted in detention, work and a
regime of cleaning and praying. This was moral
reform, “Modern man is born of regulations.”
The body is now docile and subject to
improvement and usefulness. Disciplines are
enforced everywhere. The body becomes a
mechanism of power, e.g, soldiers are trained to
march, schoolchildren to sit and write properly.
Docile bodies (Disciplined
Bodies)
- The aim of disciplinary technology is
to forge “a docile body that may be
subjected, used, transformed and
improved” (136)
Docile bodies (Disciplined
Bodies)
A docile body is produced through
hierarchal observation, normalizing
(standardizing) judgment and periodical
examination
Formation of a Disciplinary Society
Triple objectives of the disciplines – to
increase the docility and the utility of all the
elements of the system.
Using the multiplicity itself as an instrument
of discipline.
The panoptic modality of power..continued to
work on the juridical structures of the
society..the ‘enlightenment’ which discovered
the liberties, also invented the disciplines.
Discipline is a ‘counter-law’.
The infinitely minute web of panoptic
techniques.
The schema of power-knowledge in each
discipline.
The ideal point of penalty today would be an
indefinite discipline.
4 Jun 2023 Rinu Krishna K MPhil 2014-15 Institute of English
The means of correct training
The purpose of disciplinary power is to train. The success of
disciplinary power depends on three elements: hierarchical
observation, normalizing judgment, and examination.
Disciplinary institutions created a mechanism of control. Slight
departures from correct behaviour were punished.
Hospitals as an examining machine are one of the features of
the eighteenth century where normality is judged. A similar
process is evident in the development of examination in
schools.
Panopticism
Foucault begins with a description of measures to
be taken against the plague in the seventeenth
century: partitioning of space and closing off houses,
constant inspection and registration. The techniques
and institutions for measuring and supervising
‘abnormal beings’ (those who were infected,) forms
the disciplinary mechanisms created by the fear of
the plague. All modern mechanisms for controlling
abnormal individuals derive from these.
The Panopticon, a type of prison, was designed by
Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham.
The circular design consists of a tower which a warden can spy
on and penetrate behaviour of the inmates. Because of its
shape, the subjects under surveillance never know when they
are being watched, and so effectively police themselves. The
design increases the number of people who can be controlled,
and decreases the number needed to operate it.
Disciplines are techniques of assuring the ordering of human
masses.
It is no surprise that the cellular, observational prison is a
modern penal instrument, or that prisons resemble factories,
schools and hospitals.
Foucault's Discipline and Punish
“… the existence of a whole set of
techniques and institutions for
measuring, supervising and
correcting the abnormal brings into
play the disciplinary mechanisms to
which the fear of the plague gave
rise. All the mechanisms of power
which, even today, are disposed
around the abnormal individual, to
brand him and to alter him, are
composed of those two forms from
which they distantly derive.
Bentham’s Panopticon is the
architectural figure of this
composition.”
4 Jun 2023 Rinu Krishna K MPhil 2014-15 Institute of English
Bentham’s (1748-1842) Panopticon
The Panopticon is a type of institutional building
designed by the English philosopher and social
theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century.
The concept of the design is to allow a single
watchman to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates
of an institution without the inmates being able to
tell whether or not they are being watched.
The design consists of a circular structure with an
“inspection house” at its centre, from which the
manager or staff of the institution are able to watch
the inmates, who are stationed around the
perimeter. Bentham conceived the basic plan as
being equally applicable to hospitals, schools,
sanatoriums, daycares, and asylums, but he
devoted most of his efforts to developing a design
for a Panopticon prison, and it is his prison which
is most widely understood by the term.
4 Jun 2023 Rinu Krishna K MPhil 2014-15 Institute of English
The Panopticon “Visibility is a trap”
“At the periphery, an annular building; at
the centre, a tower; this tower is pierced with
wide windows that open onto the inner side
of the ring; the peripheric building is divided
into cells, each of which extends the whole
width of the building; they have windows,
one on the inside, corresponding to the
windows of the tower, the other on the
outside, allows the light to cross the cell
from one end to the other.”
Reverses the principle of a dungeon.
Axial visibility & Lateral invisibility – a
guarantee of order
Permanent visibility that assures the
automatic functioning of power.
Power is visible & unverifiable.
In "Discipline and Punish“ - the
panopticon is contrasted with public
execution scaffold.
Panopticon “mechanism of power
reduced to its ideal form”
It automatizes & disindividualizes power.
It does not matter who exercises the
power.
Produces homogeneous effects of power.
Economic geometry of a ‘house of
certainty’.
Does the work of a ‘naturalist’.
Laboratory of power.
A cruel ingenious cage.
Polyvalent in its applications
It gives power of mind over mind.
4 Jun 2023 Rinu Krishna K MPhil 2014-15 Institute of English
Panopticon “democratically controlled”
May be subjected to irregular and
constant inspections.
Democratically controlled
Accessible to ‘the great tribunal
committee of the world’.
May be supervised by society as a
whole.
4 Jun 2023 Rinu Krishna K MPhil 2014-15 Institute of English
Panopticon is a metaphor
for invisible surveillance in
modern times.
Social control is more
efficient when is not
visible and internalized in
the people’s soul (inner
social control).
The Role of the Panopticon
To strengthen the social forces.
A new ‘political anatomy’ whose object and end
are not the relations of sovereignty but the
relations of discipline.
To spread effective education.
Exerts a moral influence over behavior.
As centres of observation disseminated
throughout society.
State-control over the mechanisms of discipline.
Instrument of permanent, exhaustive,
omnipresent surveillance…hierarchized network.
the formation of a disciplinary society in the
movement from enclosed disciplines to an
infinitely extendible "panopticism“
We are in a panoptic machine – the individual is
carefully fabricated in it.
Panopticon Today
4 Jun 2023 Rinu Krishna K MPhil 2014-15 Institute of English
Panopticon Today
4 Jun 2023 Rinu Krishna K MPhil 2014-15 Institute of English
Panopticon Today
4 Jun 2023 Rinu Krishna K MPhil 2014-15 Institute of English
Complete and austere institutions
Other forms of punishment were
unthinkable because the prison was so
closely linked to the functioning of society.
We can no longer think of "replacing"
prison. As our society is built on liberty,
prison as the deprivation of liberty is the
obvious punishment. Prison both deprives
of liberty and transforms individuals.
Prison has total power over individuals; it is
"omni-disciplinary”. The first principle is
isolation from other prisoners and from the
world. Habit is imposed by the regulation of
the prisoner's time and life.
The prison also acts as a workshop, and a
hospital where cure and normalization take
place. This combination is known as the
penitentiary system.
Illegalities and delinquency
Prisons were soon criticised. Various points were
made, e.g., prisons do not diminish the crime rate,
and they produce delinquents by the environment.
Prison encourages delinquents to associate and
plot future crimes. Prison conditions and
condemns freed inmates to future surveillance.
Also, prisons produce delinquency by making the
prisoner's family destitute. Critics always argued
that prison is not corrective enough, or that, in
correcting, it loses its power of punishment
Carceral society
The carceral system succeeds in making the
power to punish legitimate and accepted. The
overall political issue of prisons is whether we
should have them, or something else. Foucault
sees this book as a historical background to
various studies of power, normalization and the
formation of knowledge in society.
Prisons are major industries of
power/knowledge. Carceral archipelago and its
‘sciences’, such as psychiatry, criminology and
psychology, ensure that the judges of normality
are everywhere.
Basic Tenets of Power
The operation of power cannot be separated from
the treatment of knowledge and discourse.
Forms of domination are built into the very
understanding of the common activity or goods
sought or whatever forms of the substance of a
relationship.
All individuals exercise, and are subjected to
power through a net-like organization.
Power requires the abandonment of the legal view
that defines power as the enforcement of the law.
How Power is Enacted
The effectiveness of power increases as the
visibility decreases.
Humans are unaware of the extent to which
power affects lives.
Power is no longer the conventional power of
institutions and leaders, but instead the capillary
modes of power that controls individuals and their
knowledge, the mechanism by which 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.” (Foucault,
Power/Knowledge, p. 30)
Disciplinary Power
A form of surveillance which is
internalized. With disciplinary power,
each person disciplines him or herself.
Disciplinary power is also one of the poles
of bio-power. The basic goal of
disciplinary power is to produce a person
who is docile.
This is connected to the rise of capitalism.
Disciplinary power is especially important
in the policing of sexual confession
Disciplinary Technologies
Techniques for producing docile people. These
are "techniques of discipline."
"Without the insertion of disciplined, orderly
individuals into the machinery of production,
the new demands of capitalism would have
been stymied.” (Dreyfus and Rabinow,
p.135).
The aim of disciplinary technology is to forge a
"docile [body] that may be subjected, used,
transformed and improved" (D and P)
