Week 12: Discipline and Punishment – Foucault's Social Theory PDF

Foundations of sociological thought* Poststructuralism. Discipline and surveillance society. Introduction to the thought of Michel Foucault (1926 – 84) *Prepared with the assistance of Donya Hatami (2021).  Readings The Poststructuralism intro sectio...

Foundations of sociological thought* Poststructuralism. Discipline and surveillance society. Introduction to the thought of Michel Foucault (1926 – 84) *Prepared with the assistance of Donya Hatami (2021).  Readings The Poststructuralism intro section + the bio and theoretical orientation of M. Foucault in ADE textbook. M. Foucault (trans. by A. Sheridan), Discipline and Punish (1975/1977) [excerpts in ADE 2021)  Critical theory. Post-structuralism  Structuralism – broadly speaking the idea that social life can be examined and expressed in social structures  recall the social order – social action problem, or the structure – agency dilemma  Post-structuralism is a diverse body of disparate theories, with some common themes:  Rejection of structuralism  Rejection of fixed relationship between the signifier and the signified  meaning of concepts and ideas is “floating”  “truth” is “established” through everyday social practices  Defining post-structuralism  Extreme doubt about the existence of universal patterns of meaning and culture  One of the guiding themes that unify the various post- structural thinkers is their general skepticism toward the universality of shared meaning as conveyed by signs  Poststructuralists hold that no absolute, universal truths exist – truth is made within particular contexts and as a result of the interplay of knowledge, power, and social practice (ADE 2021)  In comparison Structuralism Post-structuralism Social structures are real, Social structures do not have a fixed, objective have objective meaning or meaning existence; they are infused Structures can be studied with and maintained in a systematic and rational through everyday exercise way of power Structures constrain our They are inherently agency unstable Think about Durkheim or No objective or universal Marx truth exists  The experts determine what is “true” (Hatami 2021)  “My objective for more than 25 years has been to sketch out a Michel Foucault (1926-84) history of the different ways in our culture that humans develop knowledge about themselves: economics, biology, psychiatry, medicine and penology. The main point is not to accept this knowledge at face value but to analyze [them] as very specific ‘truth games’ related to specific techniques that human beings use to understand themselves.” (1982, cited in Hatami 2021)  Archaeology and genealogy Archaeology and genealogy  Archaeology is a historical method whereby discursive practices are “unearthed” much like the artifacts of past civilizations  the evolution or history of human understanding  Genealogy examines the impact of power on the social production of knowledge (ADE 2021)  Epistemes/Discursive formations  Foucault argues that the pattern of knowledge changes over time via discursive shifts in what he calls epistemes.  Episteme (Greek word for knowledge/knowing  “epistemology): a framework of knowledge (such as religion or science) that shapes discourse, that collection of linguistic tools, rules, descriptions, and habits of logic that make possible specific understandings of the world (ADE 2021)  Shifting epistemes around disability in Canada  Early 19th century – the “law and order” model; disabled people often jailed alongside criminals as deviant  Late 19th c. – the asylum model developed. Transition to the medical model  institutionalization  From 1960s onwards – sociopolitical model of disability as consequence of social barriers  emphasis on individual rights and barrier elimination Cf. Jongbloed 2003; Picard 2012)  Genealogy. The impact of power on knowledge  Knowledge is practically simultaneous with power  Power appears in its most potent form when successfully translated into systems of “knowledge” and thus removed from reflection under the veil of obvious truths (ADE 2021)  Power to define what is known and how  and what is suppressed. Knowledge/power is produced, re-produced and exercised in everyday social interactions and relations  Power/knowledge Foucault highlights the productive aspects of power articulated through discourse and knowledge that circulates throughout the entire social body to create not only truth but also different types of individuals: the normal and the abnormal, the reformable and the redeemable, the healthy and the diseased. Power is exercised in and through legal systems and penal institutions, medical and psychiatric professions, and educational institutions and the family to control individuals’ behavior, their sexuality and their bodies [to produce] “correctly” trained individuals capable of being “useful” to the social order (ADE 2021: 653)  Discipline  Discipline is “governance on a subtle and ubiquitous” scale (Moore 2014; Foucault 1977 – Discipline and punish. The birth of the prison)  Discipline as the quest for the “docile body”  According to Foucault, social institutions exist to ensure discipline and utility  schools, prisons, the military, clinics, religious orders…  Dimensions of discipline 1) Hierarchical observation - hierarchy based on inequality of power 2) Normalizing judgment - “deviance” from the norm must be controlled 3) Examination (combining 1. and 2. with consequences (punishment) (Foucault 1977)  The docile body  The body is regulated, under surveillance, made deviant  state institutions such as medicine, psychiatry, and law, that define and limit the behaviors of bodies by punishing those who violate established boundaries and rewarding those who do not (Foucault 1977)  bodies, esp. of of the “abnormal”, “criminal”, “insane”  expert knowledge  control (Foucault 1963/1973)  The apparatus renders the person visible and trapped  they become merely a case to be examined, an ID number to be accounted for (remember technological rationality?)  Dispositif  Dispositif (apparatus) “is, firstly, a thoroughly heterogenous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions–in short, the said as much as the unsaid. Such are the elements of the apparatus. The apparatus itself is the system of relations that can be established between these elements” (Foucault 1977, cited by Gordon 1980)  Medicalization  Medicalization is the process by which a condition or behaviour becomes defined as a medical problem requiring a medical solution.  The process of medicalization serves to increase the power of medical doctors while reducing the power of other authorities, including judges, the police, religious leaders, and legislators.  Focus is not on so much on the patient as on finding “the cure” (Chang and Christakis, 2002, after Steckley, 2017)  Medicalization  Medicalization was introduced into sociology by the contemporary Austrian-Croatian historian and philosopher Ivan Illich (d. 2002) who said that “medicine always creates illness as a social state” (Illich, 1976, after Steckley, 2017)  Doctors in positions of power; “the silent patient” and cultural iatrogenesis” of medicine (Illich, 1976)  Medicine and the doctor’s knowledge “mystified”  Patient given no credit for their role in the recovery process Evolution of discipline and punishment  Foucault presents the sociohistorical evolution of punishment over time as marked by a noted decline in the ferocity and publicity of penal force accompanied by the rise of humanistic concerns surrounding the implementation of punishment.  The new stage is marked by the introduction of penal practices based on surveillance and discipline (ADE 2021) Evolution of discipline and punishment Execution/torture Surveillance Individual self-surveillance (virtual fortress) (ADE 2021) Foucault’s three phases of punishment Phase Authority Method 1st (17th – 18th Centralized authority Spectacle of centuries) (kings) public torture/execution, displays of violence 2nd (18th to 20th Decentralized External centuries) institutions (schools, surveillance, military barracks, disciplinary society, religious convents, rules and prisons, camps regulations 3rd (from 20th century Diffuse, multiple self- Internal to the present day) regulations surveillance, disciplinary individuals Loosely based on ADE 2021: 656)  “On 2 March 1757 Damiens the regicide Art. 17. The prisoners’ day will begin was condemned “to make the amende at six in the morning in winter and at honorable before the main door of the five in summer. They will work for Church of Paris,” where he was to be nine hours a day throughout the year. “taken and conveyed in a cart, wearing Two hours a day will be devoted to nothing but a shirt, holding a torch of instruction. Work and the day will end burning wax weighing two pounds”; then, at nine o’clock in winter and at eight “in the said cart, to the Place de Grève, in summer. where, on a scaffold that will be erected Art. 18. Rising. At the first drum-roll, there, the flesh will be torn from his the prisoners must rise and dress in breasts, arms, thighs and calves with red- silence, as the supervisor opens the hot pincers, his right hand, holding the cell doors. At the second drum-roll, knife with which he committed the said they must be dressed and make their parricide, burnt with sulphur, and, on beds. At the third, they must line up those places where the flesh will be torn and proceed to the chapel for away, poured molten lead, boiling oil, morning prayer. There is a five- burning resin, wax and sulphur melted minute interval between each drum- together and then his body drawn and roll. quartered by four horses and his limbs and body consumed by fire, reduced to Art. 20. Work. At a quarter to six in the summer, a quarter to seven in ashes and his ashes thrown to the winds.” winter, the prisoners go down into the courtyard where they must wash their Foucault 1977 as cited in Hatami 2021 hands and faces, and receive their first  Panopticon  A philosophical idea developed by an English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1790s  Greek compound of pan-all and optikon-seeing  You are always being seen without ever seeing  You can never be sure whether you are being watched  best behaviour, self-discipline  The Cuban “panopticon”. Presidio modelo prison Photos taken from amusingplanet.com; Wikipedia.org; havanatimes.org and alamy.com , retrieved March 1st, 2018.  H ospitals, schools, factories (…) all became sites for surveillance , assessment, measurements and classification (..) for the production of scientific knowledge and the exercise of bio-power in the name of transforming individuals and regulating the otherwise unproductive, unhealthy, and dangerous multiplicities. Patients, students, workers, and madmen were to be controlled (…) for the benefit of society (ADE 2021: 656)  Is it surprising that the (…) prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penalty? Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons? (Foucault 1977 in ADE 2021: 672)  Discussion questions 1. Compare and contrast Foucault’s general view of society with those of the other theorists discussed in the course so far. What similarities or differences do you notice? Provide examples. 2. Using an example from “real life”, explain, in your own words, the relationship of power/knowledge in Foucault’s theory 3. What could be the consequences of Foucault’s ideas for our social life today? What implications for our present-day reality does his theory entail?