SOCIOLOGY: THEMES AND PERSPECTIVES (Haralambos and Holborn) -

2004

Michael Foucault: Power/Knowledge

 Power is intimately linked with knowledge.

 The extension of the power of the state therefore involves the
development of new types of knowledge, which enable it to collect more
information about and exercise more control over its populations.
 This involves the development of discourses: ways of talking about things,
which have consequences of power.

Madness/Civilisation

 Much of Foucault’s early work was taken up with an account of how the
states increasingly tried to regulate and control populations.
 In Madness and Civilization (1967) Foucault describes how such
phenomena as unemployment started to be seen as social problems by
states in 18th Century. Before that the mad were largely seen of having
little interference.
 These methods of dealing with the mad were replaced by places of
confinement (madhouses) in which the mad, poor and sick were
separated and isolated from the rest of the population.
 Foucault argues this was due to a new concern in European culture with a
sense of responsibility for such social problems and a new work ethic.
 A new sin of laziness was created.
 New scientific disciplines such as psychiatry were created to categorize
people.
 The practice of psychiatry created the mentally ill, and was a method or
tactic of controlling particular groups of the population.
 This was a new method of administration, which allowed the monitoring
of people and hence offered potential for controlling their behaviour.
 This classification of people was not limited to the power of the state yet
became a more localized form of power.
 For example between a psychiatrist and a patient, yet the power remains
in the discourse and not the individual psychiatrist.

Evaluation

 Tends to focus on areas of power associated with knowledge rather than

other types and sources of power (economic, military).

SOCIOLOGY (Giddens) – 2009

Michael Foucault and Post structuralism

 Analyzed the development of modern institutions such as prisons,
hospitals and schools and how they played an increasing role in
controlling and monitoring the social population.
 The role of discourse was central to his thinking about power and
control in society.
 He used the term to refer to ways of talking or thinking about
particular subjects that are united by common assumptions.
 Foucault demonstrated, for example, the dramatic way in which
discourses of madness changed from medieval times through to
present day.
 In medieval ages the mad were treated as harmless, however in
modern societies madness has been shaped by medicalised
discourses, which emphasize illness and treatment.
 This medicalised discourse is supported and perpetuated by a highly
developed and influential network of doctors, medical experts,
hospitals, professional associations and medical journals.
 According to Foucault, power works through discourse to shape
popular attitudes towards phenomena such as crime, madness and
sexuality.
 Expert discourses established by those with power or authorities
can often be countered only by competing expert discourses.
 In such a way discourses can be used as a powerful tool to restrict
alternative ways of thinking or speaking.
 Again referring to Foucault’s view of power relating to technology,
surveillance, enforcement and discipline.
 Foucault energetically attacked the present, the taken-for-granted
concepts, beliefs and structures that are largely invisible precisely
because they are familiar.
 The notion of sexuality is a prime example, of being developed
socially.