Analysis of Michel Foucault’s Discourse of Power-Knowledge Nexus

We cannot understand the world around us without a sophisticated understanding of the

complex but intimate relationship between knowledge and power. In order to understand this, we

have to move to the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s concept of power and knowledge.

According to Foucault, power and knowledge are interrelated. He argues that knowledge

produced by colonial institutions is recognized as true knowledge because of its inherent power.

In a Foucauldian sense, power is a relative force that is dynamic and creative of subjects and

closely linked to the knowledge that is always in the service of the powerful.

Foucault’s discourse of power-knowledge nexus is best explained by the post-colonial

theory which states that knowledge produced by the power (colonial power) is considered as true

because of its inherent power. Drawing upon this, Foucault developed the concept of discourse.

He explains it as an approach of thinking and talking about something. A discourse, he argues,

scientifically forms the objects of which they speak; a way in which certain aspects of social

reality are made and represented.1 A discourse, as Foucault argues, does not only define the

world around but also constructs the manner in which it is perceived and understood.

Foucault, drawing on this, argues that the knowledge which scholars appear to produce is

the outcome of a discourse. Foucault was of the view that scholars are not the real creators of

knowledge instead, they are no more than holders of the knowledge which is produced by a

governing discourse. 2 This means that the construction and use of knowledge itself are political.

1
Dr. Tammy Chatterjee, “Colonial Discourse Analysis: Foucault’s Power/Knowledge Nexus and Said’s Orientalism”,
The International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 8, no. 1 (2018), 200.
2
Abdellatif El Aidi & Dr. Yahya Yechouti in their study, “Michel Foucault’s Theory of Discourse in Edward Said’s
Theory of Orientalism”, The Criterion: An International Journal in English 8, no. 4 (August-2017), 1062.
As Jane Hiddlestone, argues that knowledge promulgates the social marginalization and coercion

of those who could not obey to the norms of the dominant discourse.3

To explain this, we can take an example of the post 9/11 prevailing American discourse;

the dominant view of Americans about Muslims are terrorist and violent people. This image of

Muslims in America is formed by the dominant discourse. This (distorted) image of Muslims as

violent people is ratified by the state institutions of America, and people accepted this American

view as the truth. His basic argument is that power regulates knowledge because power has the

ability to control, change, and put into effect itself. He asserts that it is not possible for power to

be exercised without knowledge, and likewise, in the case of knowledge. In this way, a

connection between power and knowledge is constructed.

3
Jane Hiddlestone, “Foucault and Said: Colonial Discourse and Orientalism”, in Understanding Postcolonialism
(Acumen Publishing, 2009), 76. doi:10.1017/UPO9781844654284.004.