SOAN 2040 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Biopower, Chief Operating Officer

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SOAN 2040
• Professor: D Rose

Document Summary

Covert systems of bodily surveillance and discipline are built into the system. Power is diffuse, although not equally distributed. Work is becoming more and more degrading (very pesismestic view) You don"t have control over the process (no ownership once the product leaves the assembly line) Overt system is where you know your being watched (i. e you see the security camera watching you) Covert system is where you don"t know if your being watched. Foucault says power is everywhere (he doesn"t want to say that the prison guard has more power then the prisoner) He doesn"t want to deny that there are people who have more power then others in situations. Society is maintained not by consensus or overt coercion but by covert systems of bodily surveillance and discipline . Power is a relation between subjects, exercised within the social body rather than above it. Power is distributed unevenly (asymmetry of power) Where there is power there is resistance.