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Foucault And Identity Analysis

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Paul- Michel Foucault was a French philosopher also known as a historian of systems of thoughts whose influence extended across a broad array of disciplines especially in the humanities and social sciences and a social critic. He created his own title when he was promoted to professorship at one of the most prestigious colleges in France “College de France” in 1970. He is perhaps best known for his ruminations on power, self identity, epistemology, and the evolution of systems of thought and meaning. He is often described as post-structuralist or post modernist, however Foucault himself rejected such titles, preferring to analyse their significance rather than identifying with them. He was born on October 15, 1926, in Poitiers, France and …show more content…

Foucault saw the self and identity as different ways in which human beings develop knowledge about themselves such as economics, biology, medicine and many more. However, he believes that the knowledge of oneself is not to be accepted, but the analysis of the sciences which would be related to specific techniques that helps human beings to understand themselves. In other words, Foucault rejected the view of identity and believes that people do not have a real identity within themselves but that this identity is shown to others and may shift or change according to various situations. He sees identity as a temporary shifting construct, a form of subjugation and a way of exercising power over people, this was reiterated in Foucault: Sex & The Technologies of the Self in Identity, Culture and the Post Modern World, “we do not have a homogeneous identity, but instead we have several contradictory selves. He thinks of identity as a process difficult to grasp, rather than something we find or have once and for …show more content…

Foucault’s work on asylums and insanity allows for a different and unique take on the evolution of the modern self. In his 1977 work, ‘Discipline and Punish’, Foucault breaks down and analyses the connections that exists between power and knowledge. He examines these connections in relation to those in charge, which due to societal circumstances are deemed in power over the masses as they exert and impress their form of identity onto those over whom they are in control. The social construction of sexuality revitalises an even stronger argument for cultural identity and its link to power and overwhelmingly dominant discourses. Social and cultural identities are shaped in relation to the norms and value systems within a society. As Foucault examines the insane and the origins of deviance, he provides insight on how the self is created in relation to expert discourses that attempt to keep the societal norms intact, encouraging individuals to keep themselves within the mould that the society has set out as what is normal in a process of

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Although the bourgeois and capitalist society regarded sexuality to be taboo because it was not economically productive, sexuality was being studied in order to categorize sexual behaviors and label individuals, since “homosexual was now a species.” (“History of Sexuality” 43) With the medicalization of sexuality, the “machinery,” society’s social institutions produced discourses to constitute a controlled knowledge which affected the thoughts and behaviors about it in different contexts. However, the “true discourses” Foucault mentions, are not actually real or true as it would imply these discourses would stay constant even in different

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