Page 37 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

Changing Definitions of Politics and Power 23

TV shows, and so on. In Foucault ’ s view, the body is imprinted in history;

its capacities are historically specific and produced in practices of power.
According to Foucault, power also produces subjectivity. In this respect,
Foucault famously breaks with the humanist idea that the subject is the

source of intentional meaning, self - refl exive, unified, and rational which
has been dominant in modern Western thought (McNay, 1994 : 4). For
Foucault, subjects are always subjected , produced in discourses and prac-
tices of power which position them as speakers who are in possession of
self - consciousness and, most importantly in the twentieth century, of an
unconscious that determines desire. In The History of Sexuality , volume
I, Foucault discusses at length the irony that in trying to liberate him or
herself in therapy, the analysand is actually subjecting him or herself to
a strategy of normalization which produces the very subject who should
free him or herself in this way (Foucault, 1984a ). In positioning oneself
as the “ I, ” the subject of speech in the discourse of psychoanalysis, one
is produced, and experiences oneself, as an individual with secret desires
which must be uncovered in analysis if one is to be free and healthy. The
self of psychoanalysis is produced , not discovered . Furthermore, the pro-
duction of self takes place in a relationship of power insofar as the analy-
sand ’ s speech, thoughts, and dreams must be interpreted by the analyst,
positioned as an authority by the discourse of psychoanalysis. What the
case of psychoanalysis illustrates, according to Foucault, is that subjectiv-
ity itself, the very possibility of having a self of which one is aware, of
saying “ I ” with some degree of self - knowledge, is conditional on the
exercise of power.

It is clear that Foucault could not have identified the effects of power
on the body and on subjectivity using a totalizing theory of power. His
analysis depends on examining the precise details of historically specifi c
knowledges and practices as they operate differently in different institu-
tions to produce constraining and subordinate identities. Nevertheless, his
studies have been quite extensively criticized as tending to fall back into
the negative view of power to which he is opposed, portraying it as a
monolithic, unmitigated force of domination. Certainly, as previously
noted, his use of the term “ power ” suggests a critical perspective on exist-

ing practices of subjection and objectification. In this respect, it has
undoubtedly been highly effective in denaturalizing reified social construc-

tions. However, critics argue that if all social relations and identities are
the product of power, this critical perspective is actually redundant. There
are two related points here. First, it is argued that the concept of power
suggests that something is overcome, or dominated, in its exercise. If,
however, all human capacities are produced in power, why call it power