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Michel Foucault: Security, Territory, Population
Michel Foucault: Security, Territory, Population
Michel Foucault: Security, Territory, Population
Structure
first three lectures deal with the issues of security and population; fourth and most of the fifth lecture focus on the art of government; the sixth through the ninth examine the history of pastoral techniques; the tenth and eleventh discuss raison Dtat; and finally, the twelfth and thirteenth lectures deal with the important early-modern institution of the police.
Security
Discipline and security as two different systems of power because focus is different discipline deals with individuals and security with populations disciplinary society Benthams Panopticon ideal prison whose inmates would continually be open to surveillance by unseen observer Security Society: the government of populations, through self-regulation, discipline achieved through norms and normalization (ex of Sexuality)
Sovereign operates on a territory; Discipline operates on an individual; Security operates on a population. Security apparatus about modulation, not total reformulation of elements, is always in motion, with goal of best possible circulation of goods, things, people in the milieu (understood as the environment with actions and the materials on which action operates)
Population
History: formerly about population of territory (as in depopulation due to epidemic) Mercantilists: population the object of sovereignty (along with territory) and source of sovereigns strength and could be regulated as productive force (number, work, docility)
Good government then understood as administrative monarchy (by analogy with head of family); 18C discovery of demographic regularities (statistics as discipline of state) reconceptualize population as collection of subjects subjected to natural phenomena Population: natural forces AND economic forces
Government interest: shift from security over territory to security over people, the management of the population Management not through authoritarian dictate but diverse array of direct and indirect means of influence Creates a mutation in organization and rationalization of methods of power
Power
has the population as its target, political economy as its major form of knowledge, and apparatuses of security as its essential technical instrument (108) Together these three form governmentality Major technique is production of knowledges that yield shared mentalities and norms on which they may be based Power the outcome of dispersed actors and actions that together yield changes in mentalities and institutions
A constant interplay between techniques of power and their object gradually carves out in reality, as a field of reality, population and its specific phenomena (79) Examples are the emergence of science of statistics and growing interest by state in public hygiene (example of smallpox inoculation and later vaccination)
Distinction between government of populations and exercise of sovereignty over the fine grain of individual behaviours Self-regulation and normalization Example of Sex: change in mentalities influences populations
History of Sexuality
Hystericization of Womens Bodies Pedagogization of Childrens Sex Socialization of Sex Psychiatrization of Perversions
Third lecture: use of inoculation (1720) and vaccination (1800) to draw out contrasts between sovereignty, discipline and security Security apparatus from the point of view of normalization technologies of normalization intervene by imposing a system of classification, hierarchization and distribution (discipline: normalizing gaze that orders and differentiates)
Pastoral Power
Individualization techniques and totalization procedures Ensures salvation; sacrifices itself for the flock; looks after individual during entire life and not just whole community; needs to know inside of peoples minds and an ability to direct conscience.
Some Concepts:
bio-politics The increasing state concern with the biological well-being of the population including disease control and prevention, adequate food and water supply, sanitary shelter, and education.
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)
Dispositif (Apparatus)
The concept of an episteme is insufficient and dispositif fills in the gap. An episteme is researched through the analysis of discourse (text), but there are practices (institutions, architectural arrangments, regulations, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophic propositions, morality, philanthropy) in addition to discourse which we may use to do a genealogical analysis of some particular situation .
Government
[B]y government Foucault meant not so much the political or administrative structures of the modern state as 'the way in which the conduct of individuals or of groups might be directed: the government of children, of souls, of communities, of families, of the sick.... To govern, in this sense, is to structure the possible field of action of others (Burchell et al, 1991)
Governmentality
A centralization and increased government power. This power is not negative. It produces reality through "rituals of truth" and it creates a particular style of subjectivity to which one conforms or against which one resists. Since individuals are taken into this subjectivity (and recognize themselves in it) they become part of the normalizing force. Governmentality also includes a growing body of knowledge that presents itself as "scientific," and which contributes to the power of governmentality.
Police
The job of the police is the articulation and administration of techniques of biopower so as to increase the state's control over its inhabitants. Policing as akin to activities of social workers in history of policing.