What Does Foucault Say About Power

Foucault challenges the idea that power is wielded by people or groups by way of ‘episodic’ or ‘sovereign’ acts of domination or coercion, seeing it instead as dispersed and pervasive. ‘Power is everywhere’ and ‘comes from everywhere’ so in this sense is neither an agency nor a structure (Foucault 1998: 63).

What did Foucault say about power?

According to Foucault’s understanding, power is based on knowledge and makes use of knowledge; on the other hand, power reproduces knowledge by shaping it in accordance with its anonymous intentions. Power (re-) creates its own fields of exercise through knowledge.

What is Foucault theory?

Foucault’s theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. … These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called “archaeology.”