"...in a society such as ours...there are manifold relations of power that permeate, characterize and constitute the social body, and these relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of a discourse."
Michel Foucault
According Michel Foucault exists a wire of power among us. The power side changes constantly and every moment we can notice it.
Foucault decentralizes power and argues that it does not operate through class but through mechanisms and strategies. Foucault says that power should be understood in terms of its operations, techniques and tools (“What does power do?”) rather than in terms of simply what it is. Power is not owned by the state, nor is it specific to any particular organization. It is a machinery that no one owns. Its application points are multiple, dispersed throughout all social institutions. Power, according to Foucault must be analyzed as something that circulates, or rather as something which only functions in the form of a chain. It is never localized here or there, never in anybody’s hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth. Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organization… Individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application
Therefore, when analyzing power, one should examine the diversity of the points of applications of power rather than a deep structure. Foucault insists that power is typically present throughout the institutions of modernity, in all kinds of administrative contexts (1). Techniques and strategies of power are always present. They originally develop within institutions like armies, prisons, factories but their influence seeps into the texture of social life.
The authority project comes from an experience that I had on the beginning of 2006. I was in the immigration department of an European country trying to figure out what should I do in order to have a document. My first thought was that i should talk to the policeman that was in front of the door and ask him for information. When I went to his direction he started to yell at me in his mother tongue. I was astonished, because I was not able to say anything to him. So, my reaction was start to yelling in Portuguese (my mother tongue) at him. Afterwards, he was more calm and we could talk normally.
I think this experience is deeply related with Foucault’s idea of power, and how it is spread and can be suddenly changed.
(1) Foucault, Michael. "Discipline and Punish: the bieth of the prison". Vintage Books. New York, 1995. |
