The thesis takes the position that individuals do not possess power but participate within power relations (Foucault 1998). The analysis of the five discourses draws from a definition of power as producing new objects, discourses and sites of resistance. Power is central to the exploration of subjectivities, their construction and transformation that forms the course of this research. Power underlies all social relations and is considered a positive and enabling force (Foucault 1998). Power is more than a negative force that acts to repress. If power is seen only as repressive, it is difficult to explain how it maintains such a grip. ‘Why would I submit and continue to obey a purely repressive and coercive force?’ (Sawicki 1986). Power is defined as an ‘objectivising and subjectivising force’ (McNay 1994, p.4). Power both constrains individuals from taking action, and also constitutes the conditions of possibility for transformation and change (Foucault 1998; McNay 1994).
What defines a relationship of power is that it is a mode of action which does not act directly and immediately on others. Instead it acts upon their actions (Foucault 1983, p.220).
As a force that promotes capacity and action, power is a relation that exists between people. Rather than something that is done to people, power is in constant production among and between persons, institutions, things, and groups of persons.
Power is mobile, local, heterogenous and unstable. Power comes from everywhere; it is exercised from innumerable points (McLaren 2002, 37).
Power has mobility. It is local and unstable. Power is exercised from numerous points, existing everywhere. Through locating power within action, as a relationship of force between people the momentum for capacity, change, and therefore agentiality is maximised. The discursive analysis of the research study stands outside a traditional juridico-discursive model where power is seen as a negative relation that limits behaviour by imposing rules, prohibitions and access to things through the application and enforcement of laws sanctioned by the state (Foucault 1995). Power is viewed as being more than unilateral and negative. Power is positive, productive and relational (Foucault 1998, p.93; McLaren 2002, p.37; Mills 2003).
Through discursively analysing my coming out journal, the research examines how practices, power relations and discursive apparatus affect everyday reality. How inequality and oppression are created and maintained in subtle and diffuse ways through the everyday activities and behaviours becomes a focus for the discursive analysis. The research is not interested in analysing power in its central and institutionalised forms, such as state apparatuses and class relations. Rather than focus on why people want to dominate others, or what they want through their use of power, the analysis concentrates on the relations of force that are involved in the constitution of the self as subject. It does not ask what power is and where it comes from. It asks how is power exercised and what are its effects (Foucault 2002c; Rabinow 1984, p.97; Wearing 1996, p.33; McNay 1994; Smart 2002, pp.77, 107).
2.6.1 Domination and violence
Although adopting a relational model of power, this thesis considers that it is important to distinguish between violence and domination and other types of relations of power. Power is not exercised or distributed equally; however, power is always subject to reversal. If there is no possibility of freedom, there is no relationship of power, only a state of domination (Foucault quoted in McLaren 2002, p.49). States of domination and violence are relationships where the reciprocal nature of power, considered within a relational model is greatly reduced. Within a relational model of power, the one over whom power is exercised is recognised as a person that acts, and because of this a whole field of possible interventions, responses and reactions is opened up. This capacity to act is greatly minimised in states of domination and violence. It is therefore important to acknowledge that some relations of power, those of domination and violence, greatly limit and constrain the capacity for resistance (Foucault 1983, 2002c).
2.6.2 Resistance
The theoretical frame of this research includes the tenet that resistance is located where power is exercised. ‘Where there is power there is resistance’ (Foucault 1998, 95). There can be no power without resistance. Action is considered within a field of possibilities. Resistance is born out of the struggle between competing claims of power, not the ability to get outside of power (Foucault 1980a, p.98). Resistance is never in an exterior relation to (outside of) power. The self is never completely subsumed by discourse and power. Resistance is present everywhere power is exercised.
… a nexus of subjectivities, in relations of power which are constantly shifting, rendering them at one moment powerful and at another powerless … Relations of power and resistance are continually reproduced, in continual struggle and constantly shifting (Walkerdine 1990, pp.3-4).
Parallel to any network of power relations are multiple points of resistance (Smart 2002, p.132). In order for power to operate it requires resistance. Through the articulation of points of resistance, power spreads through the social field. Conversely, through resistance, power is disrupted. ‘Resistance is both an element of the functioning of power and a source of its perpetual disorder’ (Dreyfus & Rabinow 1983, p.147). Agency is constructed through gaining greater knowledge of how these relations and practices are constructed, maintained and resisted. Subjectivity and power exist within a reciprocal relationship. ‘It is through power and its constitution of the subject that resistance is possible’ (McLaren 2002, p.66). The subject is both an effect of power and an instrument for power.