Hello Mark,
I've been thinking about your question of multiple centres for some time.
Your argument seems to be true, since Foucault rejects the notion of power
as an a priori object of thought. So, he avoids these kind of descriptions
talking about "the power" as a whole. The danger of such a description is
the gathering of all sorts of power relations in the body of a single or a
few institutions (such as the state or the army etc.). On the contrary, he
wants to show us, by his analysis of various dispositifs in modern society,
how every single space of the social environment is filled with power
relations.
A remember a France Culture radio session where Foucault speaks about the
use of space and the varying distribution of power relations in the forms
and content of these spaces. (published in "Utopies et heterotopies" as an
audio cd, 2004)
I think each dispositif is specific field of power, dealing with a specific
"problematisation" (mad, criminal, ill, etc.) of the individual experience
of beings. Thus, every dispositif serves as as a means to the strategic
objective of all dispositifs (power relations as a whole). The analysis of
dispositif (as "le dispositif général"), therefore gives us the analysis of
power, not reduced only to an economic or political power mechanism
explaining the whole system of power relations in terms of a single
mechanism of subjectivation (like Marxism), but in all fields of
subjectivation.
Can Batukan
Dept. of phil. / Univ. of Galatasaray
I've been thinking about your question of multiple centres for some time.
Your argument seems to be true, since Foucault rejects the notion of power
as an a priori object of thought. So, he avoids these kind of descriptions
talking about "the power" as a whole. The danger of such a description is
the gathering of all sorts of power relations in the body of a single or a
few institutions (such as the state or the army etc.). On the contrary, he
wants to show us, by his analysis of various dispositifs in modern society,
how every single space of the social environment is filled with power
relations.
A remember a France Culture radio session where Foucault speaks about the
use of space and the varying distribution of power relations in the forms
and content of these spaces. (published in "Utopies et heterotopies" as an
audio cd, 2004)
I think each dispositif is specific field of power, dealing with a specific
"problematisation" (mad, criminal, ill, etc.) of the individual experience
of beings. Thus, every dispositif serves as as a means to the strategic
objective of all dispositifs (power relations as a whole). The analysis of
dispositif (as "le dispositif général"), therefore gives us the analysis of
power, not reduced only to an economic or political power mechanism
explaining the whole system of power relations in terms of a single
mechanism of subjectivation (like Marxism), but in all fields of
subjectivation.
Can Batukan
Dept. of phil. / Univ. of Galatasaray