Foucault

Foucault

Introduction
1. Foucault - many subjects surrounding K&P (Sexuality, madness, discipline)
2. Mills & Smart - F not called himself a Sociologist
3. Influenced by Marx, Freud & Nietzsche
  1. history nothing more than power strugle
4. Modern penal system's history - aims to analyse punishment in social contect
5. Outline my essay
1) Power and Knowledge
1. Foucault - questions idea P is a condition of K
2. Enlightenment - P&K opposites
3. No P without K
4. P works through discourses, institutions, practices
  1. Shaped through these
5. Prison example of link between P&K
2) Confession
1. Central to Foucault's understanding of power
  1. Highly valued in the west for producing the truth
2. no longer see obligation to confess as an effect of power
  1. Not a top down power struggle
3. Presuppose secret - revealed - reveals hidden essence of confessor
  1. Prison = convict --> presuppose crime & motive
3) Sovereign - disciplinary
1. Foucault - pre-modern punishment not irrational - rational for existing culture
2. Enlightenment - torture = atrocity
  1. faded out 18th-19th C
3. Crime against Soverign
  1. lost power & influence
4. Body - Soul
  1. Punishment, supervision, constraint
    1. same in modern prison but body in new form
5. Prison all-encompassing sovereign power within modern society
4) Normalisation
1. Discipline main function = to train
2. 1/3 training factors
  1. all make individual object of P&K
3. max social control, minimal force
4. Normalising judgement
  1. constant evaluation
  2. gap reduction
  3. gratification punishment & rewards
5. great instrument of power along with surveillance
5) Hierarchal Observation
1. Foucault - 2nd training
2. Observe without being observed
3. can see induced effects of power
4. The Gaze - overall functioning of power
5. Foucault - perfect disciplinary apparatus - one gaze see all
  1. Bentham's Panopticon
6) Panopticon
1. Foucault "marvelous machine"
2. produce homogeneous effects of power
3. regulate behaviour - shows power of those running institutions
4. power not just used by those in control
5. create knowledge through observation
  1. see how power affects them all
6. A laboratory of power
7) Examination
1. laboratory = categorising
  1. determine cause of criminality
2. creates discipline of criminology & criminal personality
  1. another P, another K
3. without crim prisons fail to survive
  1. who is normal and who is deviant
    1. who needs to be normalised
4. P&K welded together
8) Critique - Prisons not needed
1. Baudrillard - generally positive of F
  1. Qs F concepts of radical social theory (incl. power)
2. post-mod society caught up with media consumption
  1. controlled by fashion & lesuire
    1. Prisons not needed
3. F & B agree to understand P must be deconstructed
9) Criticisms - Marxism
1. Marx historical materialism alternative to F discipline and punishment
  1. Critical of F historical record
2. Punishment explained through mode of production
  1. not rational as F suggests
3. Prisons ensure power in hands of those at the top
4. Duff - don't imprison to prevent crime
  1. to control those who are a threat to dominant values
10) Criticisms - Panopticon
1. Dobson & Fisher - Pan as metaphor not literal with emphasis on power
2. D&F - F fails to mention advantage of surveillance technologies
3. Bogard - no longer few watching many
  1. Mathiesen - Pan & Syn work well and equally together in society
  2. F over emphasises Pan
4. Many watching few enhanced by media
  1. Similar to Baudrillard
Conclusion
1. Training factors logical
  1. easily seen in prison
2. F - Carceral system - prison to other institutions
  1. Class like Panopticon
    1. Credibility to F
3. Provides insight into P&K relationship
  1. limitations as shown by Baudrillard, etc

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	Created by natasha.m.jones over 10 years ago