Foucault in Power/Knowledge (1980), describes knowledge as being conjunction of power relations and information seeking which he terms as ‘power/knowledge’. He states that ‘it is not possible for power to be excercised without knowledge, it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power.’ Foucault here emphasizes that knowledge is not dispassionate, rather an integral part of struggles over power. It also draws the attention to the way that, in producing knowledge, one is also making claim for power. Hence, for Foucault it was more accurate to use the newly formed compound ‘power/knowledge’ to emphasise the way that these two elements depend on one another. “Thus, where there are imbalances of power relations between groups of people or between institutions/states, there will be a production of knowledge. Because of the institutional imbalance in power relations between men and women in Western countries, Foucault would argue, information is produced about women; thus we find many books in libraries about women but few about men, and similarly many about working class but few about the middle classes.”
Now, we should examine the role of language in the process of knowledge formation. For illustration purpose we would refer to examples from the status of the Bangla language in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) during the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial era. The ‘knowledge’, most of us will agree, in Foucaultian sense is a tool for creating a discourse in terms of power and hegemony. This knowledge is created in order to influence ‘others’ in an influencing way. What can be a better tool than the language itself in creating a particular knowledge? In fact it is the language which asserts the authenticity and superiority to ...
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...nged through ethnic appeals and a pattern was set for similar developments in future.
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Pierre Bourdieu was a highly influential theorist. He provides a unique and fascinating definition or understanding of power as well as an explanation and analysis into how power works. This work serves to outline what is this specific concept of power means and contains, how it is created, what are the various forms it takes on and in general, how power works. Power is a difficult concept to define conclusively or definitively however, Bourdieu explains power to be a symbolic construct that is perpetuated through every day actions and behaviours of a society, that manipulate power relations to create, maintain and force the conforming of peoples to the given habitus of that society (Bourdieu, 1977). Power, is a force created through the social conventions of a specific community that dictate what is expected or accepted by the people while also determining how they understand the world in which they live (Bourdieu, 1977).
In Foucault’s analysis, the concept of Panopticon is developed based on the manipulation of knowledge and power as two coexisting events. He believes that knowledge is obtained through the process of observation and examination in a system of panopticon. This knowledge is then used to regulate the behaviors and conduct of others, creating an imbalance in power and authority. Not only can knowledge create power, power can also be used to define knowledge where the authority can create “truth”. This unbalance of knowledge and power then marks a loss of power for the ends being watched, resulting in an unconditional acceptance of regulations and normalization.
They are not only its inert or consenting target; they are always also the elements of its articulation” (Foucault, “Two Lectures” 34). Power may take various forms, all of which are employed and exercised by individualsand unto individuals in the institutions of society. In all institutions, there is political and judicial power, as certain individuals claim the right to give orders, establish rules, and so forth as well as the right to punish and award. For example, in school, the professor not only teaches, but also dictates, evaluates, as well as punishes and rewards.
At this point we can determine the purpose of Foucault’s question, “what is critique”? Foucault’s definition of critique provides a tool to find cracks in power-knowledge relationships by analyzing the genealogy of a power knowledge relationship. Foucault states “we have to deal with something whose stability, deep rootedness and foundation is never such that we cannot in one way or another envisage, if not its disappearance, then at least identifying by what and from what its disappearance is possible” (65). Foucault believes that using his method of critique a power and knowledge relationship is not permanent. Questioning and knowledge can be used to remove the leash from authority.
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Some theorists believe that ‘power is everywhere: not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere… power is not an institution, nor a structure, nor possession. It is the name we give to a complex strategic situation in a particular society. (Foucault, 1990: 93) This is because power is present in each individual and in every relationship. It is defined as the ability of a group to get another group to take some form of desired action, usually by consensual power and sometimes by force. (Holmes, Hughes &Julian, 2007) There have been a number of differing views on ‘power over’ the many years in which it has been studied. Theorist such as Anthony Gidden in his works on structuration theory attempts to integrate basic structural analyses and agency-centred traditions. According to this, people are free to act, but they must also use and replicate fundamental structures of power by and through their own actions. Power is wielded and maintained by how one ‘makes a difference’ and based on their decisions and actions, if one fails to exercise power, that is to ‘make a difference’ then power is lost. (Giddens: 1984: 14) However, more recent theorists have revisited older conceptions including the power one has over another and within the decision-making processes, and power, as the ability to set specific, wanted agendas. To put it simply, power is the ability to get others to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. In the political arena, therefore, power is the ability to make or influence decisions that other people are bound by.
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The decision to grant independence to India was not the logical culmination of errors in policy, neither was it as a consequence of a mass revolution forcing the British out of India, but rather, the decision was undertaken voluntarily. Patrick French argues that: “The British left India because they lost control over crucial areas of the administration, and lacked the will and the financial or military ability to recover that control”.
When in 1978 Edward W. Said published his book Orientalism, it presented a turning point in post-colonial criticism. He introduced the term Orientalism, and talked about 2 of its aspects: the way the West sees the Orient and the way the West controls the Orient. Said gave three definitions of Orientalism, and it is through these definitions that I will try to demonstrate how A Passage to India by E. M. Forster is an Orientalist text. First, Said defined Orientalism as an academic discipline, which flourished in 18th and 19th century.
of Bengal. This gave the foreigners effective control of administration. The Marathas, the Sikhs and ...
As English governed the India , they used an efficient way to destroy the revolt from the Indian . They taught Indian English instead of their original language. Hindi is the traditional language in India, and it has thousands of the years ’ history. English gives Indian more opportunities on global business and makes Indian have higher status in the world, however, at the same time, it causes many problems. With Indian use English to communicate with foreigners, they forgot the original language. Most young people recognize that English is more fashionable. Our educational policies systematically discourage the teaching of Sanskrit, and one wonders again whether that is in deference to Macaulay, who found that great language (though he confessed ...