Foucault’s The Power/Knowledge Subjugation Of Discourse

Power And Knowledge, In Foucault's Structuralism, Directly Imply One Another

We come to the crux of Foucault' analysis of the episteme when we ask the
question, "Who does discourse serve? Epistemes, for Foucault, are characterized
by power/knowledge relationships that demand that if the individual wants more
out of life than pain and suffering then he or she must submit to the powers
that be. It is Foucault's thesis that "this subjugation occurs, without the
subject's knowledge, in the society wide procedures which pin identities to
individuals." [Mark Cousins, Athar Hussain, Michel Foucault, 1984, p. 254]

In the historical record of the exclusion practices put on the insane,
criminals, and sexual deviants, we discover the groundwork that would evolve
into, not only the compartmentalization of clinics and prisons, but also the
strategic and tactical maneuvers that define today's modern army. Blanchot
expands upon this connection, which was first pointed out by Foucault, in his
analysis of the plague (Black Death) of 1348:

It was, says Blanchot, "…through a strict parceling out of the contaminated space, through the invention of a technology for imposing order that would affect the administration of cities, and through the meticulous inquests which, once the plague had disappeared, would serve to prevent vagrancy (the right to come and go enjoyed by `men of little means') and even to forbid the right to disappear, which is still denied
us today, in one form or another," that ended up in the laws, techniques, and
procedures that redirect our attention away from power/knowledge relationships
per se, the same power/knowledge relationships that subjugate one discourse over
against another. [Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot, Foucault/Blanchot, 1987,
p.84]

In fact, Foucault implores us to recognize power/knowledge relationships
for what they really are: "…power produces knowledge (and not simply by
encouraging it because it serves power or by applying it because it is useful);
that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power
relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any
knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power
relations." [Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish, The Birth Of The Prison,
1979, p. 27]