ARTS2871 Chap.7 Power, Knowledge and Subject Formation
Power, Knowledge and Subject Formation
This chapter shifts attention from who possesses power to how power is exercised through knowledge and changing technologies. Categories, records and norms make conduct visible and comparable. People may then monitor themselves in relation to those norms, so power produces recognisable subjects rather than acting only as an external command.
Analysis should identify the technology, the norm it carries, the conduct it guides and the ways people comply, reinterpret or subvert it.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Power as a practice rather than only a possessed resource
- 02
Knowledge categories that make conduct visible
- 03
Technologies of power in records, tests, spaces and routines
- 04
Normalisation through comparison with an institutional standard
- 05
Subject formation and self-monitoring
- 06
Compliance, reinterpretation and subversion within the same field of power
Worked example · free
A student engagement dashboard
- 1This practice uses marks that are not an official University marking scheme. Identify the record and category through which conduct becomes visible.
- 1Explain the norm embedded in the colour comparison.
- 1Trace self-monitoring and the production of an engaged-student identity.
- 1Test contestability, misclassification and possible subversion.
Key terms
- Power Knowledge
- Power knowledge describes the mutual production of authoritative knowledge and practices that organise conduct.
- Technology of Power
- A technology of power is a procedure, record, spatial arrangement or routine through which conduct becomes governable.
- Normalisation
- Normalisation compares people or conduct with a standard and makes difference available for correction or intervention.
- Subject Formation
- Subject formation is the production of recognisable identities and self-conduct through repeated norms and practices.
- Contestability
- Contestability is the capacity to challenge a category, its evidence and the decision made from it.
Power, Knowledge and Subject Formation FAQ
How is this view different from saying an institution has power?
It examines the practices through which institutional power operates: categories, records, observation, comparison and intervention. The question is not only who controls the institution, but how ordinary procedures make conduct visible and guide people to act on themselves. This reveals productive effects that a simple command model misses.
What does it mean to say power produces subjects?
Norms and practices help create recognisable kinds of person, such as the engaged student or risky client. People may understand and monitor themselves through those categories. Production does not mean complete determination. Subjects can reinterpret, strategically perform or resist the identity, and those responses are part of the power relation.
Are categories always oppressive?
No. Categories can coordinate support, make inequality visible and enable claims. Analyse how they were produced, which observations sustain them, what action they authorise and whether affected people can contest them. A category becomes overreaching when a partial measure is treated as the whole person or cannot be revised.
How do I identify a technology of power in a case?
Look for a form, score, timetable, spatial arrangement, professional routine or data system that observes and compares conduct. Name the norm embedded in it, the intervention it enables and the subject position it encourages. Then examine compliance, error, appeal and strategic adaptation.
Assessment move
Map each case as a cycle: knowledge category, normalising comparison, guided conduct and subject formation. Put a concrete institutional practice beside every stage so the answer does not become abstract. Ask what the metric cannot know and which people are most likely to be misclassified. Preserve beneficial functions before evaluating harm; a support system can assist students while still producing narrow norms.
For assessment practice, replace broad claims about surveillance with a sentence on the exact identity or behaviour being produced. Develop one counter-case in which users reinterpret or game the measure, because that tests whether your account leaves room for agency. When comparing with coercion, show that direct sanctions and self-monitoring are different mechanisms even if they operate together.
End with contestability: who can challenge the category, what evidence they can introduce and whether the institution must change its decision. Keep a metric diary for one week. Each time a score, ranking or notification appears, record the comparison it establishes, the behaviour it invites and the identity it makes desirable. Separate moments of direct penalty from moments of voluntary adjustment.
At the end, choose one act of reinterpretation, refusal or gaming and ask whether it changes the category or merely moves within it. This gives you evidence for subject formation while preserving agency and helps identify where an appeal or alternative measure could interrupt the cycle.