Propuesta de secuenciación de actividades

Disciplinary power flows through social institutions such as schools, hospitals, workplaces, and prisons. It operates continuously in the most ordinary of daily interactions: ‘It applies itself to immediate everyday life’ (Foucault, in Dreyfus

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& Rabinow, 1983, p. 781). Its focus is on the individual and its purpose is ‘to persuade the individual to conform to required standards’ (Foucault, 1991, p. 174). Disciplinary power is exercised through the technologies of hierarchical observation, normative judgement, and examination. Surveillance and the collection of personal information are integral elements of these technologies. Hierarchical observation is based on the assumption that people can be controlled simply by observing them. It further assumes that control can be effective if people believe that they are being watched:

The exercise of discipline presupposes a mechanism that coerces by means of observation; an apparatus in which the techniques that make it possible to see induce the techniques of power and conversely, the means of coercion, make those on whom they are applied clearly visible’ (Foucault, 1991, p. 170).

Foucault introduced the panoptic metaphor to explain how hierarchical observation operates. The panopticon, with its central watchtower surrounded by prisoner cells, allows enables individuals to be observed at all times while they themselves are unable to see the observers. They are therefore never sure when they are being observed. This uncertainty both controls their behaviour and encourages them to internalise surveillance. This results in self-monitoring and self-discipline where individuals will, of their own accord, alter their behaviour in accordance with what is expected of them.

You have a system of surveillance, which involves very little expense. Just a gaze which each individual under its weight will end by interiorisation to the point that he is his own overseer, each individual exercising this surveillance over and against himself (Foucault, 1980, p. 147)

While Foucault represents the panoptic relationship as hierarchical, he argues that it is not a one-way hierarchy. It can be reversed. The observer can become the observed: ‘This panopticon, subtly arranged so that an observer may observe at a glance so many different individuals, also enables everyone to

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come and observe any of the observers’ (Foucault, 1991, p. 207). Thus, while a health organisation may be structured to create an all-encompassing panoptic gaze, at different times and in different contexts, consumers, health professionals, administrators and managers are able to monitor and control one another. Foucault did not apply the panoptic metaphor only to physical environments: ‘it is not that the individuals who are members of disciplinary societies set about assembling in barracks, schools of prisons; rather an increasingly better invigilated process of adjustment has been sought after between productivities, resources of communication and the play of power relations’ (in Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1983, p. 788). Consequently: ‘one sees the spread of disciplinary procedures, not in the form of enclosed institutions, but as centres of observation disseminated throughout society’ (Foucault, 1991, p. 212). Foucault thus uses the metaphor not to represent surveillance as centralised and hierarchical, but to emphasise the pervasiveness, multi- directional and invisible nature of modern disciplinary power: ‘It is a generalizable model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men’ (Foucault, 1995, p. 205, cited in Rabinow, 1991, p. 18).

Hierarchical observation enables the application of the technique of normative judgment. Rabinow explains that by normalization, Foucault means ‘a system or finely graduated and measurable intervals in which individuals can be distributed around a norm’ (1991, p. 20). Hierarchical observation is the means by which the information that allows the development and application of these norms of behaviour is collected. Normative judgment is formative rather than punitive: ‘it has the function of reducing gaps. It must therefore be essentially corrective. Of all the penances, the most advantageous derive from the means of advancing their progress, by correcting their defects, and avoiding as much as possible punishment’ (Foucault, 1991, p. 179). Individuals strive to reach the norms not because they are compelled to, but because it is normal to do so, and

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to fail to do so would be abnormal. The desire to conform is evident in the willingness of professional groups to discipline their own and their colleagues’ behaviour:

Surveillance operates through nurses being responsible not only for their own practice, but also for that of others. This calls for vigilance as to the extent to which colleagues are fit to practise (NMC 2004) and willingness to report concerns about their conduct, health or competence if necessary (Gastaldo & Holmes, 1999, p. 233).

The examination brings together hierarchical observation and normative judgement. It allows individuals who do not conform to be identified and disciplined: ‘the examination combines the techniques of an observing hierarchy and those of a normalizing judgment. It is a normalizing gaze, a surveillance that makes it possible to qualify, to classify and to punish’ (Foucault, 1991, p. 184). The examination operates across the spectrum of human activity, from the formal accreditation processes of academic institutions to the physical and psychological examination of the clinical consultation, to audit processes and performance reviews of employees. However, as with the other technologies of disciplinary power, the examination should not be viewed only in negative terms. It may also be productive and persuasive: ‘The dirty individual should be made clean; the pregnant adolescent should have information on contraception; the fat man should be helped to adopt a healthier diet’ (Gastaldo & Holmes, 1999, p. 235). In his earlier work, Foucault described disciplinary power as localised, dispersed and diffused throughout society. In his later work he discussed power as coalescing into a regulatory society wide network. At this point he introduced the concept of biopolitics.