Foucault on Disciplinary Power

Paper Summary:

In his book "Discipline and Punish", Michel Foucault analyzes the rise of a new type of disciplinary power, one linked to knowledge, techniques of surveillance, and the production of 'truth'. This paper looks at Foucault's analysis of the 'technological take-off in the productivity of power' and how he saw power as utilising the 'techniques' of the production of truth, knowledge, and surveillance. It also covers the idea of power acting through the subjectification of individuals. Finally, it attempts to analyze Foucault's framework for understanding culture, and the extent to which it is useful for this purpose.

From the Paper:

"To understand how Foucault uses the idea of knowledge as power, it is perhaps most useful for us to first look at how truth is produced, i.e. how 'regimes of truth' came about, and how these are used to legitimize knowledge in order for knowledge to have status and thus be used in power relations. For the production of truth both makes claim to power and sustains and justifies it. Foucault questions the absolute truth of knowledge and sees truth as being something constructed to impose ideas of what is right and true (Fillingham 1993:5-7). "

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