Foucault – Power/Knowledge

Foucaults theorisation of the force out/ association kindred Foucault in theorizing the relationship in the midst of agency and knowledge basic eachy focused on how creator operated in the institutions and in its techniques. The point is how antecedent was supported by knowledge in the function of institutions of penalisation. He office staffs the body at the centre of the struggles between contrasting beations of condition/knowledge. The techniques of regulation are applied to the body (Wheterell et al. , 2001 78) Power is the magnate to control others or anes entity. concordly it asshole be defined as a good-hearted of strength or as an authority. in that respect are various theorisations about the meaning of this term in sociology thus it would be hard to give a comprehensive definition. Is situation a relationship? What kind of outcome does it produce? Can it change behaviour and can it reduce the source of others? (Waters, 1994 217) All of these questions can be answered in a different way. The point might be e reallywhere whom and upon what can this power be exercised. Foucault frequently uses power and knowledge in concert in the phrase power/knowledge. He claims these devil are inseparable.A world-wide expression exists which conjoins the twain into knowledge is power. Foucault reverses the logic of this expression in arguing that possession of knowledge does not give one power only gaining power means having knowledge at the selfsame(prenominal) sentence as knowledge is already deeply invested with power thus it is rectify to agree on power is knowledge. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 643) Knowledge can be expounded as the awareness of some fact or as a skill that the individual(a) achieved or inherited. In Foucaults interpretation twain idea turned up in the analysis of the Panopticon and the plague stricken town.Being aware of the steadyts happened somewhere is knowledge and this knowledge gives power to those whom got t o know about that events although this knowledge could not substantiate been acquired in the neglect of power as in that location would not induce been whatever chance to get into a position which allows the thoughtfulness to get to know something. That is the rump of Foucaults idea about knowledge and power as one and the reason for why is serious to think other about the power is knowledge and knowledge is power correspondence. airfield and Punish (1975) is Foucaults go around genealogical probe. Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 643) At the beginning he describes a general badgering which was a totally accepted from of punishment in the 18th cytosine. dramatically introduces the whole process without attitudinizing as those days public execution was a common event, the illustrated paroxysm was as real as he presents it. As norms and attitudes changed in latter(prenominal) centuries public wrings has generate not popular anymore, populate were sentenced to go to prison where a completely different punishment scheme has been running. Foucault describes typical activities and every day life of the cons.The point of these two presentations is to examine that the changes of methods of punishment correlate with cultural and social changes in the all- season indian lodge. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 648) In the second part he draws a parallel between the obstreperous mechanics used by plague-stricken cities in the late seventeenth century and Benthams Panopticon which was intended to be the model for the perfectly rational and good prison. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 648) The point of these comparisons is to reveal how knowledge developed and how this development influenced the society.As knowledge grows and becomes deeper the recent understanding of the social and tangible world generates current locations for the finishing of power. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 646) Foucault describes two old mechanisms which was widely used, the public ex ecution as an old form of punishment and the actions against plague that emerged in a town. A new type of punishment became popular which aims to punish the soul not the body as it was common before. There is no more physical torture but torture of the soul.These two old mechanisms alien to the latter methods the usage of new strict rules that determines the prisoners life and the new method of control, the idea of the Panopticon which put surveillance from single one place forward. When plague turned up the old placement followed the then methods of reflection and surveillance, plague was everywhere thus the supporting power must have been mobilized. In this case power is mobilized it makes itself everywhere present and visible it invents new mechanism it separates it immobilizes etc. o make people act as it was expected in these conditions (because of the plague almost every interactions must have been stopped in the interest of getting rid of the disease). (Foucault, 1975) The Panopticon instead of practice power from several sides emphasises the importance and perfection of the surveillance focus from one place. The Panopticon is a create which has an annual part in the periphery and a chromatography column in the centre. Next to omitting little details its most important feature is the ability to see into every cells without world visible. The panoptic mechanism arranges spatial unities that make it possible to see incessantly and to recognize immediately. (Calhoun et al. , 2007 209) The instinct of being watched make people put on their outflank behaviour, their best way of acting thus the inmates do not commit any further discourtesys as it usually occurs that could happen without being watched. The operation of this building gives the opportunity to work with slight employees because only a few overseers necessity being in the tower to check all the cells continuously. This way only a few supervisors needed to control these employees thus it is more economical.The surveillance of the plague-stricken town would have cost a lot as a complex system ran which needed a big amount of advertise force. As techniques develop and new forms of penalty system emerge be become lesser. Knowledge grows and makes institutions more efficient as knowledge itself is efficient. As knowledge grows the techniques of cogitation and surveillance multiply such that power takes on an ever-increasing number of forms. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 646) The question is if knowledge produces more power or comes from power. The major(ip) effect of the Panopticon is to induce in the inmate a state of witting and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. (Calhoun et al. , 2007 210) Accordingly power is what is functioning all the age and knowledge could not be without presence of power. Although as Faucault (1975) claims power and knowledge directly imply one another there is no power relation without the correlativ e constitution of a report of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.Thus knowledge and power can not exist independently from each other. Benthams laid shine two principles about power relating to the Panopticon it must be visible and unverifiable. The inmates will constantly have before their eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which they are spied upon and must never know whether they are being looked, but they must be sure that they may everlastingly be so. (Calhoun et al. , 2007 210) These two principles give the opportunity to exercise power over the prisoners. The other very important thing is that this system is not only successful in prison but in every kind of institutions.Could be practise in school or even in an office, people became successfully regulated by the power if vision. The idea of the Panopticon is a metaphor for the general presence of a new penalty system which is called the disci plinary society by Foucault. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 644) This society is discipline by being constantly watched and penalise by excluded them from normal society. Criminals and those whom do not follow the laid down rules are not punished in front of public anymore. There is no need to express power visibly to gain mental picture in it. Waters, 1994 231-232) Panopticonseque surveillance has become so effective that individuals now guarantee and normalize their own behaviour without any prompting, surveilling and disciplining themselves as if they were simultaneously the inmate and guard of their own self-produced Panopticon. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 646) What if that surveillance is not that effective and something breaks the discipline? The whole system can lose its power when turns out that this observation is not accurate. Surveillance must be continuous all the time otherwise people lose their belief in the power of it. erst someone realises that can commit an law-b reaking or just do something against the rules without being caught the whole system can be questioned. The best exemplification for this is public cameras all over the streets nowadays, although people know that they are visible whatever they do still commit crimes and do unacceptable things. The offender can not be completely sure about being watched or not. The same situation prevails in a school or office where the employees and students know that they can be lucky and might be not watched.If once punishment does not take place the individual can take under consideration the fact of being always watched thus disciplined behaviour is not guaranteed anymore. Foucaults genealogical investigation is about to look on how power/knowledge and forms of punishment changed during the yesteryear few centuries. Until turn of the nineteenth century sorry deviance was controlled by public attacks on the offenders body. (Waters, 1994 231) macrocosm execution was quite an common in the 18 th Century (although it is still ongoing even today in some countries), Foucault identifies such punishments as political rituals. Waters, 1994 231) single-foot was the expression of power, presented how the offender is punished if commits an offence against the only crowned head power. This sovereign power was one centralized authority, like a king. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 643) According to Foucault punishment went through another two legs since public tortures (which is the first deliver). This form of punishment is considered unacceptable nowadays, but not because it goes too far, rather it is because punishment and the power that guides it have taken new, more acceptable forms. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 643) Punishment became nonvisual and kinder to the body, to be disciplined was the point rather than to be punished. The second stage of penal practices was based on surveillance and discipline what was aimed to harm the mind. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 644) Public exe cution can be considered as a terrible kind of punishment, but torture of the mind is the worst. Physical pain could have been unsupportable during these public tortures but psychical pain over historic period and years is tougher as it has no end.With the birth of prison power started to practice the new, less crucial form of penalty which may be more obscure than it seems. Foucaults three stages can be distinguished by the time period when that form of punishment were popular, by the basis of authority/power was in power, and by the methods how these punishments were practiced. In the 18th Century, as it was mentioned before, the penalty system was leaded by a central authority which could have been a king or one single corporation of the government.The method was a kind of public corporal punishment that is in Foucaults Discipline and Punish the public execution, the public torture. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 646 Table 15. 2) In addition this torture took place in public. Lat er on among so many changes torture as a public spectacle disappeared. (Foucault, 1975) The second phase of punishment emerged in the 19th-20th Century when the basis of power was a decentralized institution. Methods were based on surveillance and discipline like in Benthams Panopticon or in the plague-stricken town. Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 646 Table 15. 2) Today, in the 21th Century we are in the third stage of punishment where there are multiple principles about the authority of the penalty system, multiple self-regulations exist and power is diffusive. The trend of the second phase is intensify in the third. Power has become destructed and individualized, disciplinary individuals turned up. No longer are social structures and specific institutions necessary for the exercise of power and the meting out of punishment. (Appelrouth and Edles, 2008 646) In Discipline and punish Foucault analyses the ways how the offender is disciplined in different punishment regimes. In early tim es punishments were crude, prisons were places into which the public could wander. (Wheterell et al. , 2001 78) The latter form of regulation and power became private. Inmates were closed into prisons with an occult system. Public could not see into these institutions anymore. Punishment became individualized and the body has become a site of a new kind of disciplinary regime.Of ladder this body is not simply the natural body which all homosexual beings possess at all times. (Wheterell et al. , 2001 78) Knowledge determines this body, the knowledge about the offence and offender. This body is produced within discourse the state of knowledge about crime and criminal, what counts as true about how to change or deter criminal behaviour This is a radically historicized conception of the body. (Wheterell et al. , 2001 78) Foucault carried out a genealogical analysis of punishment and discipline.This analysis, among others, was based on the power/knowledge relationship which was at least as altering as the forms of the penalty systems were showed in the historical review. Various techniques were used to punish and these techniques were influenced by the exercised power in one place one time. The perfect institution to practice power and discipline/punish offenders is the building of the Panopticon. According to Foucault this building is the answer for all questions turned up with other methods of punishment.Bibliography Appelrouth, Scott and Laura Desfor Edles. 2007. Classical and contemporary sociological system text and readings. Pine Forge Press 641-665. Calhoun, Craig J. , Joseph Gerteis and James Moody. 2007. Contemporary sociological theory. Wiley-Blackwell 209-216. Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline & punish. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Waters, Malcolm. 1994. 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