Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 12:07:37 +1000 From: jim-AT-socs.uts.EDU.AU (Jim Underwood) Subject: Re: What is Power? Karen! This is one of the nicest groups on the net! John's already given you a pretty good answer, and I'm only an amateur, but htis is the way I see it. Power operates at two levels (conceptually, in "reality " the levels probably merge and interact in ways I can't even think about). At the local level we have relationships between (among? does Foucault distinguish the diad from the triad? cf Simmel, game theory) people. Each person is trying to achieve something (gain advantage) and some sort of measure of their success (objective? subjective?) describes the power outcome. That is, power is a way we think about relationships - we say X was more powerful in that relationshipship, but this does not mean X "has" power, before or after. So someone might benefit, but the game might change next time. Why? Because the outcome depends on how the power acts (behaviours, symbols) displayed in this relationship interact with all other relationships. This unbounded network of power relationships is Power (with a capital, though Foucault wouldn't admit it). This might sound a bit "structuralist" but as long as we don't think of Power as having fixed rules or syntax (it makes itself up as it goes along) it's not structuralist in the usual sense. Dreyfus says (Foucault - p187) "power is intentional (and non-subjective) at the local level" (help! I don't follow the non-subjective bit) and gives my favourite Foucault quote: "They don't know what what they do does." So individuals benefit more or less randomly from Power, which is a more or less independent process. I don't know how much time Foucault spent in bureaucracies (eg universities) but there you can see this happening all the time. Perhaps someone will campaign to be Dean (a clear intention) but in the process will spread discontent which "causes" the demise of the department (and hence their prospects for advancement). So here the beneficiary may be another department which was not directly involved in the original "small p" power relationships. Personally, I think of this as being conceptually similar to biological evolution, but then maybe I'm just short of concepts. Does that help? Jim Jim Underwood Department of Information Systems phone +612 330 1831 University of Technology, Sydney fax +612 330 1807 PO Box 123, BROADWAY 2007 e-mail: jim-AT-socs.uts.edu.au AUSTRALIA http://linus.socs.uts.edu.au/~jim/ ------------------
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