Sociology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 6

Sociology - Essay Example In this paper, the author presents Foucault’s ideas on the discourse of criminality vis-Ã  -vis other sociological theories, such as labelling theory, symbolic interactionism, and social imagination. Thereafter it will be argued that perhaps, such theories in fact fall within the relations of power that Foucault insists are components of discourse, demonstrating the extent of Foucault’s theory. Disciplinary institutions are, by and large, places where power is exercised and coursed through various mechanisms, but not merely for its own sake. The latter observation is made by subjecting the study of such institutions to a reversal: is it really the simple case that power is found only on one side, exerting its influence through restrictions and rules? The answer as per Foucault is ‘no.’ Not only can power be understood in the negative, it can also be seen in the positive, as a productive relationship. This is an aspect of power relations that is either overlooked or altogether dismissed. Without doubt, it is in Discipline and Punish (1977) that Foucault’s concern with discipline and surveillance becomes even more pronounced than his other genealogical works. Here he examines the progressive sophistication of disciplinary mechanisms such as punishments employed in prisons that are in fact, upon closer scrutiny, representative of the same progression of di sciplinary mechanisms in society. He undertook an examination of power relations using the penal institution as a take-off point, for the primary reason that it is here where the different disciplinary techniques used in the exercise of power are more evident. At the outset, he shows how torture and execution was made a public spectacle, with the condemned man being paraded in a manner deemed suited to the crime he committed. Interestingly however, public tortures and executions soon became a ‘hidden’ affair, with the condemned man being transferred