Foucault's Concept of "Power/Knowledge" Explained
(Hallway doors—a useful metaphor for understanding Foucault’s concept of power/knowledge. Some people are on the inside, empowered and able to speak. And some are on the outside, silenced and disempowered from speaking.)
One of Michel Foucault’s fundamental concepts is power/knowledge. We normally think of power and knowledge as two separate concepts, one political and one epistemological (having to do with truth for its own sake), or perhaps pedagogical (having to do with teaching and education). Foucault, however, argues that power and knowledge are inextricably linked, such that it doesn’t make sense to speak of one without the other. Hence, power and knowledge are conjoined into a single concept, which he calls “power/knowledge.”
According to Foucault, all knowledge is possible and takes place only within a vast network or system of power relationships that allow that knowledge to come to be, in order for statements accepted as “true” in any context to be uttered, and in order for what counts as knowledge to be generated in the first place. For example, scientific knowledge may be produced only as the result of well-funded academic institutions, for-profit corporations, and/or governments, each of which is rife with its own visible, and often invisible, power relations, economies, and strata.
Think of the difference and relationship between upper management, middle management, and lower-level employees, between various branches of government in the American political system, or between faculty, students, and administrators at a university. To a very large extent, these power relationships define the agenda the organization will follow, whether a research agenda or organizational agenda, what types of utterances and viewpoints are accepted within the organization or messaged outward from the organization, but, most importantly, which viewpoints, utterances, and research agendas are included in or excluded from the domain of “truth” and “knowledge” within a specific context.
The same is true for the relationship between power and knowledge ini the other direction. Systems of power, whether governmental, academic, cultural, corporate, or scientific, are all justified and upheld by a complex web of beliefs generally accepted as “truth” or as “knowledge” by people of various ranks and roles within any particular context, such that it’s not possible, even in principle, to separate the vast web of power relationships from the vast web of beliefs, each of which feeds off the other in a relationship that is deeper than mere symbiosis or reciprocity. This, when we speak of either power or knowledge, according to Foucault, we are really dealing with power/knowledge as a single, vast web of power relationships and systems of knowledge, the majority of which are implicit and not commonly called attention to within any particular society, context, or institution.
To understand Foucault’s concept of power/knowledge, it’s important to understand that Foucault does not mean merely top-down power relationships such is seen in the relationship between a monarch—such as king or queen—and his or her subjects. Power relationships, for Foucault, are not always top-down; they can be bottom-up, lateral, overlapping, or even bidirectional.
(Yale University—A typical American university where systems of knowledge are deeply intertwined with networks of power relationships of all sorts, what Foucault referred to as “power/knowledge.”)
Think, for example, of the many power relationships present at a typical American college or university. Yes, the teacher may have power over his or her students, such as the ability to determine the students’ grades, to influence their academic careers, to promote or hinder students’ future success in the form of willingness or hesitancy to write letters of recommendation, and so on. The students, however, also have power over the instructors in the form of teaching evaluations, academic appeals, student government, appeals to the college’s administration or governing bodies, and so on.
These hierarchical relationships, however, don’t even begin to scratch the surface of the many, many overlapping power relationships in all directions, for Foucault. Think of the way in which the social relationships between peers, even those in the same cohort of students, influence students’ success, whose work is praised or ridiculed, which students are taken seriously and which are overlooked, which students feel comfortable speaking in class and which feel silenced because of those very social relationships, and so on. Think similarly of the complex relationships between various faculty members or administrators at any particular educational institution, with faculty and administrators vying for positions of power within the institution, to get their own proposals to be accepted and acted upon, to be seen as one of the insiders of the institution instead of socially excluded, to be the most published or publicly visible faculty member in one’s academic department, and so on.
These are examples of lateral power relationships that are not hierarchical but nonetheless have a profound impact on what counts as truth or knowledge both at the level of a particular educational institution and globally in terms of cultural contexts in which the knowledge produced is either accepted or rejected in the cultural context as a whole, whether locally, nationally, internationally, or globally. Moreover, there are analogous power relationships between institutions of all sorts, with institutions vying for notoriety (and often funding!), with various branches of government competing with one another for control or the final say-so on any particular issue, and with the members of each of these organizations constrained and influenced, but also powerfully enabled, by those very same power relationships and the cultural systems of truth and knowledge that uphold them.
(Power relationships are not always top-down. The social relationships between peers, between the same cohort of students, or between faculty members are lateral power relationships that are just as relevant to how knowledge is produced and what becomes accepted as “true.”)
Throughout the history of philosophy, political philosophers have recognized a relationship between power and knowledge. Plato, for example, thought that philosophers, who were best able to understand the concept of justice in itself, would be the best rulers and should be entrusted with political power because they alone would know how to wield that power justly. (See Plato’s Republic.) Aristotle’s view of practical knowledge similarly influenced his view on the nature of government and the correct use of political power as a form of practical problem-solving. (See Aristotle’s Politics.) In the modern period, political philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes (cf. Leviathan), John Locke (cf. Second Treatise of Government), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (cf. The Social Contract) actively sought to ground their political philosophies in human rationality, natural history, etc. while using their influence as philosophers, for political purposes, to mold the political reality of humankind using the tools of human reason.
But while Foucault wasn’t the first philosopher to draw a connection between power and knowledge, or between truth and influence, Foucault was the first to argue that these concepts, because of the depth at which they are intertwined, are not separable even in principle, that whenever one speaks of knowledge, one is also ipso facto speaking of power, and whenever one speaks of power, one is also speaking ipso facto of the systems of knowledge that uphold and maintain the power relationships in question.
For Plato and Aristotle, and for Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, knowledge and power were related but still separate in principle. For Foucault, however, one can never speak merely of power without the systems of knowledge that uphold that power, and one can never speak merely of knowledge without the power relationships, both hierarchical and lateral, that allow that knowledge to be produced in the first place and for it to be generally accepted within a particular context. Thus, there is never mere power or mere knowledge; there is only power/knowledge.
Those who generate knowledge can do so, and are accepted, only because they have many overlapping forms of power. Similarly, those who wield power of any form—political, social, economic, academic, etc,—do so only because of of the underlying cultural views about knowledge, truth, politics, human nature, education, etc. that allow those individuals to obtain those many forms of power in the first place. But again, most importantly, often the most influential power relationships are non-hierarchical—i.e. they are more social than political in nature, having to do with as much with social capital as economic or political capital.
So, when talking about Foucault’s notion of power/knowledge and trying to apply it to a particular context—whether academic, scientific, political, religious, or otherwise—you must seek out and uncover the various hidden and implicit (and often purposefully concealed) power relationships operating at every level within that context itself, and even between neighboring overlapping contexts, whether economic, social, political, or geopolitical, and at every level, from the largest institution to between individuals at every level of social and institutional hierarchy.
Those who are allowed to speak and have influence, as well as those who are not, are governed by the very same network of power relationships and systems of knowledge within their shared contexts, as anyone whose voice or influence has even been silenced will know all too well, and as anyone with the power to speak and to influence outcomes also knows and enjoys all to well while wielding the influence that those very relationships of power and knowledge make possible.
For Further Reading:
Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings, 1972–1977 by Michael Foucault
