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Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (French: Surveiller et punir : Naissance de la prison) is a 1975 book by French philosopher Michel Foucault.It is an analysis of the social and theoretical mechanisms behind the changes that occurred in Western penal systems during the modern age based on historical documents from France.
Foucault's theories primarily addressed the relationships between power versus knowledge and liberty, and he analyzed how they are used as a form of social control through multiple institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist , Foucault rejected these labels and sought to critique authority without limits on himself. [ 10 ]
Foucault first used the phrase "carceral archipelago" to describe the penal institution at Mettray, France.Foucault said that Mettray was the "most famous of a whole series of institutions which, well beyond the frontiers of criminal law, constituted what one might call the carceral archipelago."
Another early form of the theory was proposed by Reiss (1951) [3] who defined delinquency as, "...behavior consequent to the failure of personal and social controls." ." Personal control was defined as, "...the ability of the individual to refrain from meeting needs in ways which conflict with the norms and rules of the community" while social control was, "...the ability of social groups or ...
[4] More than a disciplinary mechanism, Foucault's biopolitics acts as a control apparatus exerted over a population as a whole or, as Foucault stated, "a global mass." [4] In the years that followed, Foucault continued to develop his notions of the biopolitical in his "The Birth of Biopolitics" and "The Courage of Truth" lectures. [27] [28]
Biopower (or biopouvoir in French), coined by French social theorist Michel Foucault, [1] refers to various means by which modern nation states control their populations.In Foucault's work, it has been used to refer to practices of public health, regulation of heredity, and risk regulation, among many other regulatory mechanisms often linked less directly with literal physical health.
Scientific knowledge for Foucault isn't an advancement for human progress as is so often portrayed by the human sciences (such as the humanities and the social sciences) but is much more of a subtle method of organizing and producing firstly an individual subject, and secondly, a fully functional society functioning as a self-replicated control ...
A major theme throughout these lectures is the constantly changing relationship between admitting guilt ("avowal") and achieving justice for both individuals and society. [3] Foucault starts with Pre-Socratic ancient Greece and follows how it's evolved over time. Then he examines "avowal" as applied to professional fields like medicine, law ...