Foucault, Michel (1926–1984)

Born in Poitiers, France, Michel Foucault trained in psychology and philosophy. He held posts at a number of French universities before taking a prestigious appointment at the Collège de France in 1969. He was a prolific author, lectured widely in France and the United States, and was active in several political causes, including campaigns for [Page 260]prison reform and gay rights. Foucault subscribed to the Kantian notion of philosophy as a critique of knowledge and described his life's project as a Critical History of Thought. The goal of Foucault's scholarship was to create histories of the different modes by which human beings are made into subjects. His early scholarship convinced him that his analytical work on the production of the subject required an understanding of how the human subject is placed in power relations. The issue of power became an explicit problematic in Foucault's lecture series to the Collège de France in the 1970s and in his first volume of The History of Sexuality in 1976. He continued to refine his views on power until his death in 1984.

An understanding of Foucault's earlier scholarship is crucial to understanding his reasons for rejecting contemporary conceptions of power. Foucault's early scholarship rejected the idea of individuals having universal characteristics and focused instead on the manner in which human beings are made into subjects. He argued that knowledge about human subjects forms part of multiple and fragmented attempts to regulate human bodies and described the way in which these techniques and forms of knowledge differ between historical periods. For example, in Discipline and Punish, published in 1975, Foucault outlined the origins of the modern penal system and considered the development of forms of knowledge, expertise, and new disciplinary techniques that could be used to regulate the movements and behaviors of prisoners. Crucially, he understood these techniques to form part of a broader set of disciplinary techniques that pervade contemporary society. These, he argued, create a very different understanding of the human subject from that of the medieval or early modern period.

Foucault's position on power evolved during the later period of his life but was consistent in its focus on power as a relational rather than an “economic” concept. In Society Must Be Defended, Foucault critiqued the economic concept of power that he saw as common to legal, liberal, and Marxist approaches to power. The economic approach encourages us to view power as a commodity or a right that can be possessed and acquired. The liberal conception of power, for instance, relies on the idea of the rational individual who is free to enter into a social contract to

protect his or her economic and civic interests. Such approaches to power, however, subscribe to fixed understandings of human subjectivity. In contrast, Foucault's historically situated subject needs to be analyzed using a noneconomic conception of power. His alternative to an economic conception of power was the development of a “relational” analysis of power that understands power as a pervasive element of all social relations and in relation to its presence in a given society and historical period. This position can be characterized as a method for incorporating power in an analysis of social relations rather than as a comprehensive theory of power. Foucault's relational approach to understanding power is demonstrated in his lecture series of 1977 to 1978 and 1978 to 1979, which were published as Security, Territory, Population and The Birth of Biopolitics. In these lectures, Foucault developed a historical account of several different modes or forms of power, including those of pastoral power and government. These modes of power were not, Foucault explained, either static or entirely cohesive. Rather, relations of power can best be understood as the product of tactics that were employed in historical situations of conflict or competition between communities or groups. These tactics are accompanied by the development of ideologies, theories, and forms of knowledge that morally justify those tactics.

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