Poststructuralism Flashcards
Poststructuralism
- A theoretical approach to recognize and unpack the multiple meanings and constructs of power embedded in our ‘knowledge of the world’
- Questions the origins of accepted knowledge:
Concepts: identity, subjectivity, knowledge
Power
A over B
A through the institutions Z over B
Discursive power and the normalization of the discourse
Dispositif
A system of relations between elements (including rules, regulations statements, politics,s laws, practices, and discourses
Genealogy
Knowledge and truth are shaped by social relations of power
A genealogical analysis interrogates the multiple origins for a concept to reveal the mechanisms and role of power in the production and re-production of that concept.
Michel Foucault, 1926-1984
Chair in ‘The History of Systems of Thought’ at the Collège de France, 1971 – 1984
●Known for a number of publications, and in recent years the collected lectures he gave annually at the Collège de France
●The Order of Things (1966)
●Archaeology of Knowledge (1969)
●Discipline and Punish (1975)
●The History of Sexuality, 4 volumes (1976-1984)
Society must be defended: Lectures at Collège de France (1975-1976)
Subjugated knowledges
The role of power in the chain to ‘science’
Foucault, “politics is the continuation of war by other means”
Discourse of disciplinarity
- Genetic
- Divine punishment/bad luck
- Lifestyle
Biopolitics
Biopower- method or means to govern/manage a population
Biopolitics- the application of biopower by a government to govern/manage its population
Disciplinary features that target the individual as well as the population
Bentham’s panopticon
The prison building that is circular and has a central guard tower that watches them all the time, “the ubiquitous eye of the state apparatus”
Governmentality
An ‘analytics of government’
A governmental practice for the ‘conduct of conducts’
