You mean technologies of the bodies like the structures (schools, prisons, hospitals) related to the secondary Foucauldian literature opposed to self?

If is this your question, i think that nowadays the existence of cyberspace constructs a virtual body of knowledge and power that asserts itself a body opposed to self.

Sorry, Photios, I thnik you misunderstood my last sentence.

When I said 'My question is, are there other (as yet) unidentified technologies of bodies (as opposed to the self)', I just mean are there technologies of the body? (But not technologies of the self, which I am not interested in, in this question).

Nick

Dear Nick,

Could this work as an answer to your question: In Part III, Ch. 2 of Discipline and Punish, entitled ‘The means of correct training’, Foucault describes three instruments of disciplinary power – hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment and examination. It seems to me that these three instruments of discipline could also be regarded as ‘body technologies of power/knowledge’. Indeed, they contain the two technologies of the ‘gaze’ and the ‘archive’ described in the question, but add other elements to the mixture as well – such as invisibility, hierarchization, normalization, punishment, homogenization, ritual.

Hierarchical observation: In the disciplinary system, coercion is achieved through invisible observation, through ‘eyes that must see without being seen’ (p. 171). The model ‘observatory’ is the military camp: ‘In the perfect camp, all power would be exercised solely through exact observation’ (p. 171). Such surveillance is hierarchized – those of higher rank see those of lower rank, but are also seen by those above them: ‘supervisors, perpetually supervised’ (p. 177).

Normalizing judgment: Normalizing judgment focuses on punishing the smallest deviations from the norm: ‘It was a question both of making the slightest departures from correct behaviour subject to punishment, and of giving a punitive function to the apparently indifferent elements of the disciplinary apparatus’ (p. 178). Disciplinary power ‘compares, differentiates, hierarchizes, homogenizes, excludes. In short, it normalizes.’ (p. 183) ‘In a sense, the power of normalization imposes homogeneity; but it individualizes by making it possible to measure gaps, to determine levels, to fix specialities and to render the differences useful by fitting them one to another.’ (p. 184)

Examination: Examination is the ritual of power in the disciplinary system: ‘The superimposition of the power relations and knowledge relations assumes in the examination all its visible brilliance.’ (p. 185) By establishing power relations, the examination produces knowledge which itself becomes a vehicle of power. The hospital and the school became sites of perpetual examination (p. 186). Examination works by objectification – ‘The examination is, as it were, the ceremony of this objectification.’ (p. 187)

Best wishes,

Teo

Hi Teo

Thanks very much for this helpful answer. Yes these are exactly the kinds of body technologies that I'm talking about. The question then is, are there other kinds of disciplinary technologies that Foucault did not identify? Have post-Foucauldian scholars described other body technologies of power/knowlege that are qualitatively different (i.e. not just variations) from those described in Foucault's work?

Nick

Hi Nick,

I got it now, thanks for the clarification! The question demands a look at post-Foucauldian scholarship. The work that immediately springs to my mind is Lazzarato’s on debt.

In his book ‘The Making of the Indebted Man’ (originally published in 2011, and in English in 2012) Maurizio Lazzarato considers the political economy and genealogy of debt, drawing on the work of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Marx and Nietzsche. Indeed, in Lazzarato’s conceptualization, debt is denoted as a technology of the self (and the preferred one in the neoliberal society), but it contains elements that concern the body as well, such as ‘life discipline’:

‘Debt directly entails life discipline and a way of life that requires “work on the self,” a permanent negotiation with oneself, a specific form of subjectivity: that of the indebted man.’ (p. 104) This ‘work on the self’ consists in acquiring the attitudes, bodily habits, perceptions, motivations, etc., required by the labour market: ‘Repayment will be made not in money but through the debtor’s constant efforts to maximize his employability, to take a proactive role in his integration into the work or social environment, to be available and flexible on the job market.’ (p. 135) One is implicated in debt not only as a producer, but as a consumer as well: ‘With declines in wages and the destruction of the Welfare State, credit is the only solution if everyone is to get rich. How does this kind of politics work? “You don’t make much money? Not a problem! Take out loans to buy a house, its value will increase, and that will serve as collateral on new loans.” But once interest rates rise, the whole mechanism of income “distribution” through debt and financing collapses.’ (p. 111)

So, debt could be regarded as a technology of self/body that has risen in prominence in the neoliberal age. Such a suggestion raises the more general question about the distinction between ‘technologies of the body’ and ‘technologies of the self’ (that presupposes a distinction between body and self), but this would require the opening of another topic.

Best wishes,

Teo

Hi Teo

Well I wouldn’t mind going there (comparing technologies of body and self).

I think the key difference between technologies of the body and technologies of the self can be summed up in Foucault’s two terms: ‘discipline’ and ‘governmentality’. As I see it, in his earlier essays on prisons, medicine and education, Foucault was interested in understanding how power was achieved and sustained by acting on bodies. The gaze (and the archive) are the technologies that achieve this power/knowledge.

But he then realised that many technologies seemed to act on people’s subjectivity. In his 1982 essay ‘The Subject and Power’, he says:

‘Finally, I have sought to study - it is my current work - the way a human being turns himself into a subject. For example, I have chosen the domain of sexuality - how men have learned to recognize themselves as subjects of "sexuality" ’ (1982: 778).

The three volumes of the History of Sexuality reveals this governmental power, that acts to produce selves. Later in the essay he says:

‘This form of power applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him. It is a form of power which makes individuals subjects.’

It seems to me that there is a distinction to be made here between a technology that works to discipline a body and one that produces a self-referential subjectivity. My view has always been that Foucault did not reject his earlier studies of disciplinary power when he shifted his interest to governmentality. Instead he was recognising that these two movements of power operated in parallel, though no doubt sometimes reinforcing each other, as in the debt example you mention.

What do you think?

Nick

Hi Nick,

Thanks for this - really illuminating! I agree that the distinction between 'technologies of the body' and 'technologies of the self' is useful, not least because it makes the analysis sensitive towards paradigmatic differences in regimes of power. Thus (and keeping the history of capitalism in mind, as a general historical background):

We have the disciplinary regime of power. On the micro-level, this power operates through ‘technologies of the body’, applied over 'docile [individual] bodies'. These technologies bring about control/domination by way of surveillance (the gaze) and classification (the archive). The primary agents of power here are the experts/expertise (medical, pedagogical, military, managerial). The social policy embodiment of this form of power is the welfare state.

(The disciplinary regime of power is complemented and 'made complete' by the biopolitical regime of power. It has the same characteristics as the disciplinary regime, but it targets docile collectives/populations/societies, rather than docile individual bodies.)

We also have the governmental (neoliberal or ‘advanced liberal’) regime of power. On the micro-level, this power operates through ‘technologies of the self’. These technologies bring about control/domination through freedom and responsibilisation (shaping of subjectivity, subjectification/subjectivation). The primary agent of power here is the market. The social policy embodiment of this form of power is the workfare state.

The question about the convergence of the two sets of technologies of power (those of the body and those of the self) could then be answered - as I think you suggest as well - by arguing that a given regime of power does not efface or discard the technologies of power characterising the other regime(s), but incorporates them in the service of its own rationality. Thus, in a governmental (neoliberal) regime, the ‘technologies of the body’ are recruited in the service of the rationality of 'governing without governing' or 'governing at a distance' (Rose); whereas, in a disciplinary regime, the ‘technologies of the self’ are recruited in the service of the rationality of governing though expertise.

Another stipulation along these lines would be that the technologies of the body shape the self as well, and the technologies of the self shape (discipline) the body (as the debt example from Lazzarato suggests) - the difference is the preferred 'way of access' to governing that corresponds to the overarching rationality of government of the regime of power in question.

I hope this makes sense, although it would be hard to find such clear-cut distinctions in Foucault - many of them have been elaborated later, by governmentality studies scholars.

All the best,

Teo

You have a point here : "It seems to me that there is a distinction to be made here between a technology that works to discipline a body and one that produces a self-referential subjectivity" but Foucault tried to clarify power by making a visible distinction between power and force in 'society must be defended'. He basically elaborated on technologies of body with regard to the element of force by insisting on subjected body. The critiques find Foucault's technologies of body too tyrannic which it does not permit the emergence the parallel or simultaneous operation. Foucault simply disregards the split of subjectivity and agency in the process of subjection.