Michel Foucault:

Knowledge, Power, and

Identity
Michel Foucault 1926 - 1984

 Paul-Michel Foucault is a French

philosopher – historian who was
concerned with the development
of ideas of power through the
history of institutions and their
effect on how we understand
identities through knowledge.
 Foucault pioneered an approach
towards understanding historical
texts in which history is seen as a
production of truth, rather than
the conveyance of truth from past
events.
 Foucault was raised by a family of
wealthy surgeons, who opted him
to become a physician.
 Foucault was a closeted
homosexual in his younger years,
often causing him anxiety and
depression.
 Foucault was highly critical of the
oppressive role of institution in
shaping our conception of identity.
 Foucault was a well-known
intellectual throughout Europe and
America.
 Foucault was an advocate of
exploring one’s identity by
understanding how institutions
shape our daily practices.
 Moreover, by understanding history,
we are able to understand the
success and folly of certain
institutions and their respective
agendas.
 Foucault succumbed to
complications from AIDS in 1984
Genealogy of History
 Foucault argued that the study of
history is ought to be disinterested
and detached.
 Rather than offer a grand narrative
of explaining monumental points in
history that influenced present
developments, Foucault wanted to
look at small details such as the
practices of insignificant people to
understand the effects of
institutions to human activities.
 Foucault for example, observed
practices involving executions,
punishment, diagnosis of mental
illness, medicine, and sexuality as
a basis for his study.
 By studying these discontinuous
details (i.e. documents involving
everyday practices), Foucault is
able to point out that history is not
just a series of events triggered by
one successful event in the past.
 Institutions and the legitimisation of
knowledge
 Foucault’s analysis of history relies
on historical monuments or goals of
institutions that produces
discontinuous effects. These
effects, despite their intended goal
or outcome, often comes out
differently because of variations in
how people appropriate them.
 For example, the idea of
punishment as a mode of
deterrence for would-be-criminals,
became more of a spectacle as
opposed to a fearsome event.
 Thus, public executions,
instead of deterring would be
criminals, became a form of
entertainment for the common
folk. For some, it allowed other
practices to take place.
 Moreover, public executions,
also allowed individuals to air
their support towards the
accused. In some instances,
violent protests occur after
public executions.
 The prison system is actually a product of suppressing the
populace from creating a spectacle out of public executions.
 As a response to deterrence, the form of punishment has evolved
into a rehabilitation of the subject (prisoner) to later on
integrate them back to society.
 Thus, the prison system has become instrumental in spawning
various industries and technological implements to create
different identities.
 The panopticon does not simply represent an “omni-present”
form of observation of prisoners, rather, it represents how the
prison system works in and out of the prison.
 The idealised manifestation of the panopticon is the power of
surveillance that shapes the behavior of individuals with the gaze
of the authority.
 From the use of corporeal punishment, rehabilitation, and finally
surveillance, the idea of the human person in history for Foucault
is a technology of transforming humanity into docile bodies.
 Surveillance is a form of management wherein
subjects learn how to manage themselves, by
conditioning people to think that they are being
watched, they will behave as if they are
watched.
 Foucault was very adamant to
 For example, the internet,
discourses on history that
despite its focus on
points towards a perceived disseminating information can
end or goal. also be used to disseminate
false information.
 The “telos” or direction of
history is always subject to  Technologies that save lives
were actually realized in
the constant swaying of forces
events that were meant to take
that veers away from away lives.
projected trajectories offered
 Freedom, when too much is
by technologies. introduce, can also be made as
 While knowledge can give a tool for oppression.
power for those who can
control discourses, the
technology that is derived
from knowledge can be used
in unpredictable ways.
 Homosexuality, for example, in
the earlier part of the 20th
century, was treated as a
mental disorder.
 Foucault argues that in the
ancient Greek times, the mad
or the insane lived with the
“normal” people. In fact, their
 Today, mental illness, varies in
status was different in as much treatment and diagnosis.
as they can “see” what the
 In the UK and Europe, the
others could not see. treatment of mental illness
 In the course of time, the leans more on using
behavioural conditioning.
diagnosis of mental illness has
become different.  In the US, on the other hand,
mental illness is treated heavily
 Medieval psychology, for with medication.
example, diagnosed mental
illness as “demonic possession.”
 While ADHD is a common
phenomena in the US; in
France, ADHD is treated as a
behavioral problem as opposed
to it being a physiological
problem.
 In the Philippines, very few
people opt-in for treatments
and diagnosis because of the
“shame” involved in being
declared “insane.”
 Foucault’s emphasized the fact that
over the course of time, people have
began to isolate the mad from the sane.
 Rather than learn from the mad the
root cause and effective means of
integrating them back to society,
institutions have merely excluded the
insane from the sane.
 Technology, thus, became a system of
managing the insane.
 In Foucault’s historical analysis of
sexuality, he notes that sexuality
finds “means” despite repression
from society and institutions.
 He notes, that despite the
suppressed treatment of sexuality
in the Victorian times, sexuality
flourished.
 While institutions can somewhat
dictate certain sexual practices,
individuals will find ways to
express their own technology of
sexuality.
 This is evinced, for example, in
ancient Greece through
homosexuality.
 Despite being segregated by roles,
men and women found ways to
explore sexual identities.
Homosexuality was a common
practice, since both sexes were
detached from each because of the
roles that they played.
 Repression, as history would show,
only furthers the technologies of
“caring for one’s self.”
 Chastity Belt (for women)

Anti-masturbation
device (Victorian)
Female Genital Mutilation

“Waifu”
 Idols for men who are too shy to interact
Consensual Role Playing with women.
 Foucault advocated the
exploration of the self
(not only in sexual  Thus, rather than be merely helpless
terms) as opposed to subjects compelled to follow the
forces that influence us, we have the
allowing technologies, option to become “selective” in
becoming who we want ourselves to
knowledge, and power be.
to dictate our identities.  Thus, Foucault proposes a technology
of understanding ourselves. A
 Foucault wanted to turn technology of “caring for oneself.”
these technologies as a We are to become our own project
rather than become the projects of
way of allowing us some institutions.
sense of autonomy in
caring for ourselves.