DISCOURSE, POWER, AND KNOWLEDGE

Foucault understands discourse as a relation between speech and thought, being the statement the basic unit which makes proposition, utterances, and speech acts meaningful. The relation between speech and thought can have an enormous influence on

10 For discussion on Foucault‟s work refer to Foucault, 1984; Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982; Sarasin, 2005; Fairclough, 1992; and Ruoff, 2007.

Theoretical Background

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the knowledge forms of a culture. A linguistic expression has a function, in discourse, which serves the production and social maintenance of complex knowledge systems.

Discourse is the compilation of disperse statements (discursive formations) appearing in different places which are constructed through the same pattern or rules of formation (Foucault, 1972: p.38). Discourse is responsible for the construction of truths which are erected within the historic system of thought (Ruoff, 2007: pp. 91 ff.). For Foucault, discourses are a consequence of historic processes and every discourse -with its characteristic historic rule formation- can establish its own values and truths. What is considered as discourse then depends on the historic time and place of its appearance and whether or not statements have complied with the accepted rules of formation; if this is the case, then the statements are given meaning and discourses arise. The analysis of discourse then delivers information on the institutional embedded stabilized practices of discourse production; it reconstructs the mechanisms that allow things to be said in determine places: “not all that can be said will be said: and not everywhere can everything be said” (Keller, 2004b: p.45).

This tradition of discourse analysis put forward in “The Archaeology of Knowledge” (Foucault, 1972) is seen as a snapshot of a certain historic moment. In his further work Foucault goes on to study discourse and its relation with power and knowledge.

In “The Order of Discourse” (Foucault, 1981a), Foucault brings together the concepts of discourse and power. Discourses are linked to criteria of empowerment and exclusion as for example academic degree or recension status (Keller, 2004b). These criteria differentiate between possible legitimate speakers and non-legitimate speakers; they constitute therewith subject positions. Foucault says that truths are the result of power struggles and that what is true is only a claim within a certain speech or truth game (Keller, 2004b: p.50). Thus for Foucault, discourse is a string of elements which operate within a general mechanism of power. So discourse must be seen as a consequence of events, for example political events, which serve as a vehicle of power (Keller, 2004b:

p.99).

But what is power? For Foucault power is omnipresent because it is produced “from one moment to the other, at every point, or rather in every relation from one point to another” (Foucault, 1990: p.93 ff.). Relations of power are consequences of the division, inequalities, and disequilibrium which occur. He states that power reaches into every aspect of individuals, it inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning process and everyday life (Foucault, 1981b: p.39). Hence, Foucault‟s focus when studying power is on relations of asymmetries, non-reciprocity and hierarchy and on the ways in which they include and exclude, make central and marginal, assimilate and differentiate, in contrast to Habermas which focuses on symmetry, reciprocity, and universality (Hillier, 2002: p.59).

Foucault stresses the impact of power on every aspect of life, including on the inner-self of individuals. The individuals are shaped by power and what they say or do or what they do not say or do are all consequences of the internalization of power structures. Through discipline (Foucault, 1977) individuals exercise self-control and adapt themselves to the structures present and shaped by power in a given time. Discipline is the power

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mechanism which enables controlling all from society up to the smallest element of society, namely the individual; it is all those mechanisms which make possible the control of the operations of the individual, which assures the constant subjection of its forces and imposed upon them a relation of docility-utility (Foucault, 1977: p.137). The individual is then internally coerced because of the constant observation and vigilance that they have been put through. Constant vigilance is at some point internalized by the individuals and acts as a self-control mechanism, as a normalization of sorts; a mechanism of power.

Thus, there is no need for actual constant surveillance because individuals have shaped their behaviors and actions in face of the fear of discipline: this is what has been labeled as disciplinary power. The idea behind discipline is how to be able to monitor individuals, how can their behaviors and qualifications be controlled, how can their performances be increased, how can their abilities be enhanced. In other words: how an individual can be put in the place (is obedient) where he/she is most useful. The disciplining of societies means “that an increasingly better invigilated process of adjustment has been sought after –more and more rational and economic- between productive activities, resources of communication, and the play of power relations” (Foucault, 1982: p.219).

In order to study power, Foucault recommends that one must move from the traditional view of power-sovereignty (or juridico-discursive)¹¹ -that one must „cut of the king‟s head‟- to the construction of an „analytics‟ of power: “that is, toward a definition of the specific domain formed by relations of power, and toward a determination of the instruments that will make possible its analysis” (Foucault, 1990: p.82). For Foucault the study of power should not be limited to studying institutions because power relations are rooted in a system of social networks.

In social networks, in institutions, in statements and objects, in instruments, practices, research program, and skills is where knowledge is established (Rouse, 1999: p.110).

According to Foucault, knowledge is the “group of elements, formed in a regular manner by a discursive practice, and which are indispensable to the constitution of a science, although they are not necessarily destined to give rise to one” (Foucault, 1972: p.182). Foucault wrote extensively on the reconfiguration of knowledge in the human sciences, emphasizing that the reorganization of knowledge constitutes new forms of power and domination (Rouse, 1999: p.92). So intertwined are the concepts of power and knowledge for Foucault that even when writing he writes them together (as power/knowledge or power-knowledge).

For Foucault: “power produces knowledge … power and knowledge directly imply one another … there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations” (Foucault, 1977: p.27). The forms and possible domains of knowledge are determined by power-knowledge and its processes and struggles and not by the subject of knowledge that produces a body of knowledge. According to Rouse (1999, p. 93 ff.), Foucault was interested in examining in which context bodies of knowledge became intelligible and authoritative. The discursive formations, or fields of knowledge, were structured by “concepts and statements that were intelligible together, how those statements were organized thematically, which of those statements counted as

„serious‟, who was empowered to speak seriously, and what questions and procedures were relevant to assess the credibility of those statements that were taken seriously” (Rouse, 1999: p.93). A statement, a technique or a skill taken alone does not count as knowledge; only in so far as how it is

11 Here Foucault is recognizing his opposition to the Habermasian view on power based on systems of laws.

Theoretical Background

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used, and thus connected with other elements over time, does it constitute significant knowledge (Rouse, 1999: p.110).

The way in which knowledge is used and organized produces conflicts which in turn generate new discussion and reorganizations of knowledge. The conflicts generated (or problems being conveyed by discursive formation) and the strategies employed to solve it give rise to resistance, which can lead to discourses influencing others by it.

Foucault takes as a starting point the forms of resistance against different forms of power.

Every form of power (or power relation) implies a strategy of struggle. In order to resist power relations, one must shed light on them, locate them (their position), and find out their point of application and the methods they use. Foucault suggests that to find out what power relations are about one must start by analyzing the struggles that have been carried out in order to resist it. These struggles are in opposition to the effects of power which are linked to knowledge, competence, and qualification: struggles against the privileges of knowledge; they are also an opposition against secrecy, deformation, and mystifying representations imposed on people (Foucault, 1982: p.212). “What is questioned is the way in which knowledge circulates and functions, its relations to power” (Ibid, p.212). Thus, according to Rouse (1999, p.110), Foucault is not identifying knowledge and power but recognizing the strategic alignments that constitute each contain many of the same elements and relations: “How knowledge and power come together is historically specific and may vary significantly in different domains” (Ibid, p.111).