Introduction
Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman’s work was centralised around there two different concepts of how your identity is formed through the process of power and expert knowledge. This Essay will discuss the ideas of Michel Foucault who was a French Social Theorist. His theories addressed the relationship between power and knowledge and how both of these are used as a form of social control through society. The essay will look at Foucault’s work in The Body and Sexuality, Madness and Civilisation and Discipline and Punish which displays how he conceptualised Power and identity on a Marxist and macro basis of study. The Essay will also address the Ideas of Erving Goffman who was A Canadian Born Sociologist who’s key study was what he termed as interactional order, that is how the functions of ritual and order of every individual member of society, in everyday life, interact to form social order. He suggested the metaphor of the stage, where people play roles in specific everyday situations using trust and tact, the control of bodily gestures, face and gaze and the use of language to set the parameters of their social interactions. People individually participate in these rules of conduct to produce social order Looking at Goffmans work of the Presentation of One Self in Everyday life, Stigma and Asylums t Goffman argues that it is these interactions, or the interactional order that constructs society. This Essay looks to give an Insight of how Foucault and Goffman Compare and contrast in their theories to give an understanding of how the exertion of power and expert knowledge constructs individuals Identities.
Michel Foucault’s Theory:
Michel Foucault argues a number of points in relation to power and offers definitions ...
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Michel Foucault may be regarded as the most influential twentieth-century philosopher on the history of systems of thought. His theories focus on the relationship between power and knowledge, and how such may be used as a form of social control through institutions in society. In “Truth and Juridical Forms,” Foucault addresses the development of the nineteenth-century penal regime, which completely transformed the operation of the traditional penal justice system. In doing so, Foucault famously compares contemporary society to a prison- “prison is not so unlike what happens every day.” Ultimately, Foucault attempts to exemplify the way in which disciplinary power has become exercised in everyday institutions according to normalization under the authority network of individuals such that all relationships may be considered power relations. Thus, all aspects of society follow the model of a prison based on domination. While all aspects of society take the shape of prison, most individuals may remainignorant of such- perhaps just as they are supposed to. As a result, members of society unconsciously participate in the disciplinary power that aims to “normalize,” thus contributing to and perpetuating the contemporary form of social control. Accordingly, the modern penal regime may be regarded as the most effective system of societal discipline. [OK – SOLID INTRO]
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