Foucault Flashcards
What did Foucault want to know?
Why do people obey the rules in society? Why do they do what they are told, even when no-one is telling them?
What kinds of knowledge are dominant in public institutions for example…?
In schools, government, medicine. in particular historical periods.
What are the social effects of these types of knowledge?
eg on the school curriculum, punishment, law.
What tactical powers are produced by this type of knowledge and which groups benefit?
e.g. citizens gain power to define themselves as whatever sexuality they want
What are the effects of the operation of power tactics?
e.g. sexuality becomes seen as a choice
What is subjectivity?
How we think of ourselves as persons, as selves
What kind of personhood, forms of human being, are produced by power/knowledge?
e.g. We think of ourselves as gay, lesbian, straight etc; we may even start to think of our gender as choice
Why did Foucault reject idea of ‘essential truth’?
Truth is always relative
For Foucault, how do ideas arise?
Become dominant under certain historical conditions - but seem common sense
What does an episteme construct?
the order of things in a society, but we’re not conscious of this. Institutes, disciplines, knowledges etc develop that are consistent with those world views
What type of society puts people who have committed a wrong deed in prisons?
Disciplinary society.
What is the Panopticon for Foucault?
Metaphor used to describe the operation of power in modern disciplinary society where force is not required.
How does a new discourse emerge?
Needs to be a number of different spaces and sites which interlink and create the conditions for it.
For Foucault what are discourse always linked to?
Power, knowledge and subjectivity
What is governmentality?
Instigates a new relationship between authorities and citizens, in which the populations is targeted by techniques that bring it under systems of control
