Exam Prep

Answer all 3 questions as 3 separate essays.

Question 1- Pick one
(a) How are ethnicity and emotions socially produced and how do they interact.
(b) How are our gender and emotions socially produced and how do they interact
(c) How are our gender and ethnicity socially produced and how do they interact
Question 2
Taking the component of identity you did NOT discuss in question 1 (gender,ethnicity, or emotions):
Discuss how macro-sociological and micro-sociological perspectives would explain its social
productions.
Emotions recommended
Question 3
Our subjectivity (or sense of self identity) is both a product of individual agency/action and wider social
structures. Choose one of the theorists covered in part 3 of the course (Foucault/Rose, Bourdieu, or
Giddens): Discuss how they explain the paradox between the role of social structure and agency in
producing the self.
MACRO-SOCIOLOGIST
Marx
Structuralist and conflict approach. Society a production of the modes of production, from the Calvinists
and Protestant work ethic. Self is product of the individual's position in relation to the economic structure
individualism as a capitalist ideology.
Agency is repressed by false consciousness. Positions of different groups, anything from gender, ethnic,
etc is entirely dependent on class position economic structures.
-> Men make their own history, but it is not of their choosing.
False consciousness Illusions held by a group about the nature of reality that are detrimental to it.
Ie we are 'one' Australian, interests of big companies are 'our' interests, media provides
'objective' information, etc.
Weber
some concessions to agency, albeit structuralist approach. However is being
threatened all the time by rationalisation, scientisation and bureaucratisation and
most of the time these win. The individual's personality is destroyed by these
things, but at the same time we attribute things and make meaning. The individual
is conscious of their position, status groups, Verstehen. (the process in which an outside
observer of a culture relates to an indigenous people or sub-cultural group on their own terms and from
their own point of view, rather than interpreting them in terms of his or her own culture.Verstehen can
mean either a kind of empathic or participatory understanding of social phenomena)
1

Durkheim
Durkheim structuralist and consensus approach, focus on the bonds that hold us,
the society, together, and says the self is a product of social structures. Different
types of structures produce different personalities, and different selves. The fact
that you have a
personality is due to the structure of society (cult of the
individual) only because organic forms of solidarity allow it. A product of the division
of labour. The highly specialised lead to different personalities in 1 society they are
collective and structurally produced.
MICRO-SOCIOLOGIST
Bourdieu
How do the actions of individuals produce social structures, and vis versa? fixed way of being (Marx).
[Bourdieu] draws on different aspects of Marx and Weber, ie through economic, but also cultural and
symbolic capital.
Cultural capital Not just economic capital, but cultural and symbolic. You do/ don't
count because of your likes/dislikes, or associations We show who we are in
consumption patterns, and these operate as hierarchies of inequality, that is, as
forms of cultural capital. Those groups who have the most success in developing
good taste impose their ideas of good taste on other groups. Thereby, inequality is
not only economic but also cultural and psychological, with poorer groups being
seen as having not as good taste (cue Jersey Shore)
example -> High brow people in society go to fancy art museums. Therefore old fancy art stored in
museums = good, gives more cultural capital in that by liking/supporting, it you are high up on the social
ladder.
Symbolic capital move through social life by reference to exclusive symbols ie
logos.
Habitus Bourdieu's concept describing settled, class specific ways of representing the
body. He argued the body is a form of physical capital that enhances or limits access to scarce social
resources and marks the individual's social location. (ie body shape, type is all due to social groups ie
elite will be toned, well maintained and (relatively) healthy, showing self-control and worthiness to
others, etc)
Cultural tastes and social preferences are habitus and an expression of social power and class position.
Physique given to you by class system. So in Bourdieu, our spontaneous interactions are linked to wider
social forms which we are aware of in only a semi-conscious reflexive way.
Bourdieu's work attempts to reconcile structure and agency, as external structures are internalised into
the habitus while the actions of the agent externalise interactions between actors into the social

relationships in the field. Bourdieu's theory, therefore, is a dialectic between "externalising the internal",
and "internalising the external." - Wikipedia (structure and agency)
Foucault
Theory of knowledge and power
Social institutions and the control they have even though they dont directly discipline.
e.g. Cameras have power over peoples driving even though they arent on.
Our desires are given to us by technologies of the self. Objects, concepts, language, procedures.
- Self regulation by factors external but coercive of the self

The development of the modern social and medical sciences is the development of sophisticated
power/knowledge of social control
- knowledges work through professional groups and are internalised by us as
subjective realities
- Administrative power of the state is central to modern society
The practices whereby individuals in modern societies constitute themselves as subjects, internalising the
discourses of the psy-professions, through self appraisal monitoring their feelings and emotions and
constructing their bodies. The technologies of the self are complemented by and reinforced through the
discourse of the modern helping professions. In their dividing practices they sort the population into
groups and categories (the sane/the insane; the sick/the healthy; the normal/ the deviant) based on a
claimed scientific understanding of individuals and their actions.
Internalization of these desires is biopower which become linked to definitions of health and normality.
But they are actually external and induced by class.
e.g. Go to the psychologist that they will tell you how to feel.
- Biopower - The internalisation of scientific concepts of health and normality which are
administered by professional groups on the basis of their claim to scientific knowledge
It is in this sense that Foucaults argues that we live in a carceral society.
It is a prison in the sense that the psy-professions induce us to be our own agents of social control, so that
we willingly comply with their definition of normality.
Our subjectivity and sense of self is produced for us by examples like psy professions and we regulate,
internalise and make it come to life. (Rose)
Foucault says that we have no agency, we merely express what the social structure gives us.
ALOT of things are psy-professions, really anything that manages your psyche and returns it to a norm
as defined by the society we live in
For example parents, teachers, authority figures. Teacher: dont stand on tables Kid: ok...
Now the kid knows what is unacceptable.
Individual vs. Society

 We comply because of the power/knowledge of the psy-professions

We are only individuals because our society has produced this as the truth of our
being
We exist as individuated subjects of professional and state administrative
knowledge/power
Self-experience > no inner you
inner self given then internalised by psy-professions and similar
institutions
willing subordination to psy-professions
> self-monitoring in order to conform
Carceral Society
It is a prison in the sense that the psy-professions induce us to be our own agents of social
control, so that we willingly comply with their definition of normality.
Summarise Foucault's view of the modern world as one in which:
There is the application of scientific principles (Weber rationalisation)
To an increasingly thing body (alienation - Marx)
In specialised institutions (bureaucratisation - Weber)
- In the interests of restoring the individual to normal functioning.
In presenting these analyses of modern society Foucault seeks to link the individual to
social structures through the internalization of the norms of society (Durkheim)
Giddens
Theory of structuration
Duality of structure
Structure is the way we do social action (cant do social action without working
in a structure - otherwise no meaning to actions)
Structure is also the outcome of social action (Therefore in acting socially we
reproduce and enacting social structures)
Agency and structure are simultaneously produced through recurrent practices
We can only act if there is an institution that recognises our actions and makes
them meaningful
Structure gives us the possibility of agency BUT agency must reproduce the structure
otherwise we cannot act (i.e. actions are not recognisable, coherent or legitimate)
Agency; suggests genuine freedom to choose, without being merely expressive of another function.

The production and reproduction of society thus has to be treated as a skilled

performance on the part of its members.

The realm of human agency is bounded. Individuals produce society, but they do so as
historically located actors, and not under conditions of their own choosing.
Reflexivity - social actors ability to engage in and reproduce specific aspects of
institutions and structures, thereby changing their place within the structures

Argues that this is a characteristic of modern society and attributable

globalisation and post-modernism
Neither the subject not the structures are given independently but each constitute the other. Each is
constituted in and through recurrent practices (Weber most of social life is possible because we don't
think about why we do them, ie why we do x). The notion of human action presupposes that of
institution.

Allows for creative interpretation

Neither structure nor agency are given independently they constitute each other
Most of social life is possible because it is unthinkable
Ability to think/act/feel but only in boundaries of socially given institutions

Emotions
Durkheim - social facts produce emotions, they are not the product of the individual,
rituals - our emotions and connections to a certain group are socially produced
Marx - class, gender and social conflict influence emotions
Weber - rationalisation - emotions
Macro - large scale processes and stability in change
Micro - group dynamics on an everyday scale
Gender

Marx - social conflict, class influence ethnicity and gender

Socially Produced:

Perceptions of Gender are learnt from a young age

You a born with a sex but then you can choose a gender contrary to your prescribed gender at birth.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity is necessarily subjective/social
Dependent on the perception of belonging to a particular group self identified
5

Symbols used to project that ethnic identity

Ethnicity can be (experienced as) malleable/contextual > can also be tightly constraining
Agency;
-

Is anything you self produce

Suggests freedom to choose without being merely expressive of another function

Explain what youre talking about subjectivity- the way we experience ourselves,
character is, what our desires are, our beliefs, norms such as not telling lies, or giving money to
the homeless, its seen as good, and what your values are
Social Production

Gender

Macro - determining, felt to be real, proved

as independent
(Durkheim, Weber, Marx)
Large scale processes and stability in
change

Micro - produced by social context, need to

be maintained through language/symbols
(Rose/Foucault, Giddens, Garfinkel,
Goffman, Mead, Schutz)
Group dynamics on the everyday level

Product of ritual

Cult of individual
(Durkheim)

Rationalisation and
classification of people

Sex is a determinant aspect

of false consciousness

Used to assist in class

distinction

Appealing ideology to
patriarchal and capitalist societies

Need to do gender
successfully

Assumptions and
expectations about roles and
responsibilities

Symbolic Interaction depending on your clothing a gender

role is placed
- meaning > existence >
signifiers of difference e.g. gender
difference

Truth of our being Foucault

- knowing ourselves
sexually and as a gendered being is
central to our sense of self
> identification of self and others

Deeply embedded in
culture as natural
- basis of most passionate
feelings and commitments
(emotions)

Normal/abnormal,
natural/unnatural; heterosexuality/
homosexuality

Most regulated of all social

institutions
- taken for granted

Social production of

biology - heirarchies (of gender) are

not inevitable
Emotions

Power structures
(surrounding class, gender, ethnicity

Social facts determine

every aspect of social life

Emotion and rituals

Rationalised enchantment

Emotional labour

Alienation - Hochschild
(emotions readings) argues that people
who work by managing their emotions
(ie service industry) experience
alienation, and are (emotionally)
exploited (Marx)

Anomie - Durkheim

Marx - capitalism and

bureaucratisation define roles, access
to emotions and display

Emotions are managed

through:
- Trust (in shared definition
of situation)
- Recipes (how emotions
can/should be done) - Schutz
- Impression management
(essential e.g. manipulation)
- Dramaturgy (Goffman);
- Sincere/cy
nical
- Daily
human interaction is a
performance influenced by
the immediate situation in
which an individual is
found
- Manageme
nt of impression is a
constant concern
- Backstage
and Front stage: Front
stage is when the self is
presented through
performance, backstage is
where one prepares for
performance
- Role
expectation: social
performance is defined by
perceived social roles (e.g.
American college girls)

In managing emotions, we
contribute to the creation of it
- reproducing structures

Feeling rules
- form parts of conversation,
relations, impression management

Different expectations of
emotional expressions for men and
women

Emotion work - emotional

labour sold for a wage, therefore has
exchange value
- Mental detachment
- Feeling rules - managed by
corporations; obligation to display

and promote certain feelings

- Instrumental approach to
emotions while also giving off
natural feeling
- Surface feeling (display;
frontstage) vs. deep feeling
(conjuring real feeling from within;
backstage)
Ethnicity

Difference created in order

to strengthen belonging

Product of :
- Ritual
- Rationalisation and
classification of people (Weber)
> Origins of ethnic identity in the
maintenance of economic
resources and construction of
identity to exclude outsiders
(external economic competitor
groups)
> bureaucratisation of
death: soulless, official,
emotionless halfway to
legitimisation of death
(ordered to do it,
diminished responsibility
and morality)
> dehumanisation - the other
> social (ethnic) groups mobilise to
protect access to resources
- False consciousness
- Marx - class positions of
the actors involved and the effect of
the economic structures

Ethnicity frames situations

(constrains boundaries within which
situation can be defined)

Set recipes on how

ethnicity can/should be done

Symbolic Interaction depending on your clothing you

reinforce your stereotype
- E.g. Cronulla riots

Human nature is
inseparably intertwined with ethnicity
- Race - biological type
existing outside of society which
are unchangeable and irredeemable
(Eysenck)

Ethnicity - imaginary
condition, cultural practices and
outlooks of a given community that set
them apart from others
- enacting individuality i.e.
otherness for out-groups, by
enacting ethnicity
- dependent on perception of
belonging to a particular group
> self-identified
> use of symbols to project ethnic
identity
- experienced as
malleable/contextual BUT also
highly restrictive e.g. in terms of
gender and emotions
- significant role in
othering/subordination

Stereotypes and
prejudices derive from the
group i.e. structure (not
individual) (lack of this
anomie), enacted by
individuals (agency)

Linguistic accountability racism and ethnic tensions are due to

the linguistic achievements of

particular groups doing ethnicity
- identity (and actions of
doing identity) are
flexible/temporal/contextual
- emphasises importance of
language and symbols

Social Interaction
Situational salience of each aspect e.g. race is more important than gender in an airport
But all aspects are structurally determined/influenced
Predetermined expectations
Relationships of power
Emotions
Ethnicity

Specific emotions
attributed to specific ethnicities (and
vice versa)
interactio
n between one another
and the environment (the
meanings behind that)

Legitimacy of emotions
determined by ethnicity

Cronulla riots example

Different ethnicities
express different emotions in certain
situations

Permission to express
anger against inferiors/subordinate
migrant groups identified as
other/outsider/foreign/less worthy
- symbolic interactionism clash of contextual definitions
(e.g. beach) and interactions (e.g.
behaviours) leads to
miscommunication and
resentment

Gender

Experience of gender
determined by ethnicity and vice versa

No single experience of
woman and no single experience of
black

Different combinations of
ethnicity and gender lead to different
accesses of power

The importance of
identifying yourself in a particular
gender differs depending on your
ethnicity e.g. important for many
western countries to identify yourself
as one or the other, however in thailand
and india the importance to define
yourself into one gender is less
important

Both Gender and Ethnicity

are constraining by the way they define
us but they are also contextual (e.g. we
can somewhat choose our ethnic group
and our gender, but these groups
restrict us)

Cronulla Riots: Conflict

between perceived ethnic groups
resulted in calling upon masculine
stoism and power (perpetuating further
violence)

Stereotypes of both gender

and ethnicity are taught behaviours

(general beliefs surrounding

femininity/masculinity or ethnic
stereotypes we learn in our
developmental years)

Gender roles differ

depending on ethnicity.

Ethnicity is prescribed to
race in the same way gender is
prescribed to sex

Case study: In Saudi

Arabia women cannot drive
compare to Western countries
where women and men have
equality in the legal sense (civil
and political rights). Different
ethnicities (cultures) have
different gender roles
prescribed for certain genders
Gender

Specific emotions
available to specific genders

Feeling rules segregated

by gender
- e.g. headstrong woman
seen as manish/bossy; crying
man seen as a sissy

Gender seen as
determining natural force which
emotions adhere to

Essential part of
successfully doing gender

ESSAY PLAN
Question 1- Pick one
(d) How are our gender and ethnicity socially produced and how do they interact
a) how are they socially produced ( macro-/micro-approaches)?
b) how do they interact?

a) i) Social production of GENDER

Gender - the range of characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and
femininity - socially determined (structure) and individually internalised (agency)
- phenotypical
Sex - what you are biologically born with
- genotypical

10

Macro

Product of ritual
Cult of the individual (Durkheim)
Rationalisation and classification of people (Marx)
Sex is a determinant of false consciousness (Marx)
Used to assist in class distinction (Marx)
- Superior = white, male, caucasian (for western capitalist societies)
Appealing gender hierarchy ideology (patriarchal and capitalist society)

Micro

Need to do gender successfully

Gives rise to assumptions and expectations about roles and responsibilities
Symbolic interactionism (Mead/Blumer)
- Placement of gender roles e.g on clothing
- Meaning existence signifiers of difference (e.g.
gender differences)
Truth of our being (Foucault)
He says that knowing ourselves sexually and as a gendered being is
central to our sense of self and the identification of ourself and other
Deeply embedded in culture as natural
- Basis of most passionate feelings and commitments (emotions)
Sexuality
Heterosexual - synonymous with normal/natural
Homosexual - synonymous with abnormal/unnatural
Most regulated of all social institutions (taken for granted)
HOWEVER since biology (i.e. sex element of gender) is SOCIALLY produced,
hierarchies of gender are not inevitable i.e. natural
The day-to-day, continuous production of gender has been called doing gender
Meaning that gender is made by us in everyday lives in our interactions with
others
Doing gender thrives on continuing the establishment of a dual order of sexes
(male and female)
individually AND socially enacted (socially - legitimised practices e.g. institution
of family and marriage)
ai)
Social production of ETHNICITY
Ethnicity - cultural practices and outlooks of a given community that set them apart from others
- marked through: language, history, ancestry - Giddens
Race - Physical variations singled out by the members of a community or society as socially significant
- Giddens
- assumed to be biological/natural
- physical characteristics
- biological types existing outside of society which are unchangeable and irredeemable
(Eysenck)
Note: both race and ethnicity thought to be imaginary - social constructs. esp. race as it has been believed
to be biological rather than cultural.

11

Macro

Product of ritual
- Rationalisation and classification of people (Weber)
> Origins of ethnic identity in the maintenance of economic resources and construction of
identity to exclude outsiders (external economic competitor groups)
> Dehumanisation of the other (those who arent part of your ethnicity)
> Social (ethnic) groups mobilse to protect access to resources
False consciousness (Marx)
Class position of the actors involved and the economic structure affect ethnicity (Marx)
Social solidarity (Durkheim)
Race marks individuals as different, which undermines social
solidarity on the basis of the stranger
When an outside group enters a new society, they take longer to
integrate causing dysfunctions during the transition -> until appearance and customs
become familiar
Micro
(From the P3 ethnicity lecture slide ->) Ethnicity is necessarily subjective/social. Ethnicity is dependent
on the perception of belonging to a particular group self-identified. Symbols are used to project that
ethnic identity.
Ethnicity can be (experienced as) malleable/contextual, but it can also be tightly constraining - can limit
what you are allowed to do and what is expected of you. ie boys playing with dolls.

Ethnicity frames situations (constrains boundaries within which situation can be defined)
Set recipes on how ethnicity can/should be done
Symbolic Interaction - depending on your clothing you reinforce your stereotype
- E.g. Cronulla riots

Human nature is inseparably intertwined with ethnicity

- Race - biological type existing outside of society which are unchangeable and
irredeemable (Eysenck)

Ethnicity - imaginary condition, cultural practices and outlooks of a given community

that set them apart from others
- enacting individuality i.e. otherness for out-groups, by enacting ethnicity
- dependent on perception of belonging to a particular group
> self-identified
> use of symbols to project ethnic identity
- experienced as malleable/contextual BUT also highly restrictive e.g. in terms of
gender and emotions
- significant role in othering/subordination

Allport: Stereotypes and prejudices derive from the group i.e. structure
(not individual) (lack of this anomie), enacted by individuals (agency)

Linguistic accountability - racism and ethnic tensions are due to the linguistic
achievements of particular groups doing ethnicity
- identity (and actions of doing identity) are flexible/temporal/contextual
- emphasises importance of language and symbols

12

A) Case example - ie Cronulla riots

11th Dec, 2005 - mob of 5,000 white Aussies attacked individuals of Middle eastern
appearance. Fuelled by alcohol. Prompted revenge attacks
Originally spurred by news reports of a rape (maybe several, lots of rumours) of an
Australian girl by people of lebanese descent (allegedly).
Good example of how Gender expectations will cause people to act on relatively
unfounded evidence, merely as a way to exercise their Power as assigned in Australian culture.
Note: was done by lower socio economic working class males...
Caused by a fight between lifesavers and groups of young people of Lebanese heritage.
Subsequent media hysteria - radio stations, tv programs, in some cases giving people
permission to feel and express hatred
B) Case example - ie Saudi Arabia (women cannot drive) compared to Western Countries
(civil and political equality before the law)
- Different gender expectations in different cultures (ethnicities)
- Civil and Political equality is expected in Western countries (right to vote, right to drive
etc) for both genders whilst other ethnic cultures do not hold these same expectations e.g. Saudi
Arabia
C) The Burqa: Reinforces both gender and ethnicity (choosing to reinforce both gender and
ethnicity to wider society)
b)

how do gender and ethnicity interact?

Experiences of gender determined by our experiences of ethnicity and vice versa
- projection of gender ideals/role/expectations given by ethnic structures
internalised to produce gender
- projection of ethnic values, beliefs, rituals, language and practices
interlinked with gender expectations internalised views of ones
ethnicity, role within your culture and how you do gender
- hence there is no single experience of gender e.g. being female, and no single
experience of ethnicity e.g. being black

Different combinations of ethnicity and gender give rise to different accesses to power
and may influence class distinctions
- e.g. Male, white, middle-class - often associated with most access to power
> Connotations of success AND normality

Importance attributed to identifying yourself as being of a particular gender differs

depending on how you identify with an ethnicity
- e.g. more important in western cultures to identify oneself as male or female; gender
identification is deemed less important in eastern cultures such as Thailand, India

Both gender and ethnicity are constraining in the way they define us HOWEVER they are
also contextual
- e.g. you can somewhat choose your ethnic group and gender identity, however these
groups restrict us

Allport - Stereotypes of both gender and ethnicity are taught behaviours, e.g.:
- gender beliefs surrounding masculinity/feminity, associations of normality/naturalness
given to heterosexuality and abnormality/unnaturalness given to homosexuality
(predominantly in western cultures)

13

- taught during developmental years internalised as normal socially

reproduced reinforces social norms of gender and ethnicity

Gender prescribed to sex; ethnicity prescribed to race

- Biology is socially produced to reinforce norms of gender and sex

Gender roles are prescribed through ethnicity

Q2 - Linking Micro and Macro to Emotions
Emotions: are socially constructed responding to stimuli. A strong feeling deriving from one's
circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.
Macro:

Power structures (surrounding class, gender, ethnicity)

Durkheim: Social facts determine every aspect of social life, therefore emotions are
completely dependent on society and context

Emotion and rituals: Rituals create shared emotional feelings

Rationalised enchantment

Emotional labour

Alienation - Hochschild (emotions readings) argues that people who work by managing
their emotions (ie service industry) experience alienation, and are (emotionally) exploited - related to
Marx and alienation

Durkheim: Anomie - the idea that the lack of social integration in organic (modern)
societies leads to a reduction in social norms and values and, in turn, a lack of moral guidance
previously filled by common beliefs in mechanical (feudal) societies. This brings about brings about
a lack of social identity and a general derangement towards society

Marx - capitalism and bureaucratisation define roles, access to emotions and display

Micro:
Emotions are managed through:
- Trust (in shared definition of situation)
- Recipes (how emotions can/should be done) - Schutz
- Impression management (essential e.g. manipulation)
- Dramaturgy (Goffman);
- Sincere/cynical
- Daily human interaction is a performance influenced by the immediate
situation in which an individual is found
- Management of impression is a constant concern
- Backstage and Front stage: Front stage is when the self is presented
through performance, backstage is where one prepares for performance
- Role expectation: social performance is defined by perceived social roles
(e.g. American college girls - interviewed woman admit she would dumb down around
her boyfriend)

In managing emotions, we contribute to the creation of it

- reproducing structures

Feeling rules
- form parts of conversation, relations, impression management

Different expectations of emotional expressions for men and women

Emotion work - emotional labour sold for a wage, therefore has exchange value

14

- Mental detachment
- Feeling rules - managed by corporations; obligation to display and promote certain
feelings
- Instrumental approach to emotions while also giving off natural feeling
- Surface feeling (display; frontstage) vs. deep feeling (conjuring real feeling from within;
backstage)
Q3 - Discuss how (Foucault/Rose (counts as 1), Bourdieu, or Giddens - pick 1) explain the paradox
(contradiction) between the role of social structure and agency in producing the self.
Foucault
Theory of knowledge/power
Social institutions and the control they have even though they dont directly discipline.
e.g. Cameras have power over peoples driving even though they arent on. Power of self-regulating and
surveillance. - they (structure) control our behaviour by making us modify our behaviour (agency). (see
psy-professions bit)
Our desires are given to us by technologies of the self -> Objects, concepts, language, procedures.
- Self regulation by factors external but coercive of the self

The development of the modern social and medical sciences is the development of sophisticated
power/knowledge of social control
- knowledges work through professional groups and are internalised by us as
subjective realities
- Administrative power of the state is central to modern society
The practices whereby individuals in modern societies constitute themselves as subjects, internalising the
discourses of the psy-professions, through self appraisal monitoring their feelings and emotions and
constructing their bodies. The technologies of the self are complemented by and reinforced through the
discourse of the modern helping professions. In their dividing practices they sort the population into
groups and categories (the sane/the insane; the sick/the healthy; the normal/ the deviant) based on a
claimed scientific understanding of individuals and their actions.
Internalization of these desires is biopower which become linked to definitions of health and normality.
But they are actually external and induced by class.
e.g. Go to the psychologist that they will tell you how to feel.
- Biopower - The internalisation of scientific concepts of health and normality which are
administered by professional groups on the basis of their claim to scientific knowledge
It is in this sense that Foucaults argues that we live in a carceral society.
It is a prison in the sense that the psy-professions induce us to be our own agents of social control, so that
we willingly comply with their definition of normality.
Our subjectivity and sense of self is produced for us by examples like psy professions and we regulate,
internalise and make it come to life. (Rose)

15

Foucault says that we have no agency, we merely express what the social structure gives us.
A LOT of things are psy-professions, really anything that manages your psyche and returns it to a norm
as defined by the society we live in
For example parents, teachers, authority figures. Teacher: dont stand on tables
Kid: ok... Now the kid knows what is unacceptable.
Psy professions include: psychiatrists, prison wardens/guards (maybe?), counselors, teachers,
parents, etc - institutions/people that monitor and mould behaviour of others
Power is everywhere and comes from everywhere so in this sense is neither an agency nor a structure
- power - metapower or regime of truth which pervades society
> constantly in flux and negotiation
- power/knowledge - signifies that power is constituted through accepted forms of
knowledge, scientific understanding and truth
Individual vs. Society

We comply because of the power/knowledge of the psy-professions

We are only individuals because our society has produced this as the truth of our
being
We exist as individuated subjects of professional and state administrative
knowledge/power
Self-experience > no inner you
inner self given then internalised by psy-professions and similar
institutions
willing subordination to psy-professions
> self-monitoring in order to conform
For Foucault it is the very discourse between the individuals opportunities and the societys
constraints which shape the subjects self-awareness and construct its will
He looks onto how discourse about the subject informs disciplinary institutions and how they
construct the subject
Carceral Society
It is a prison in the sense that the psy-professions induce us to be our own agents of social
control, so that we willingly comply with their definition of normality.
Summarise Foucault's view of the modern world as one in which:
There is the application of scientific principles (Weber rationalisation)
To an increasingly thing body (alienation - Marx)
In specialised institutions (bureaucratisation - Weber)
- In the interests of restoring the individual to normal functioning.
In presenting these analyses of modern society Foucault seeks to link the individual to
social structures through the internalization of the norms of society (Durkheim)

16

Notes from Tuesday November 11.

Doing gender thrives on continually establishing a dual order of two sexes. At the latest after birth, and
often even before, people are divided into two sex categories boy or girl. From these categories, gender
characteristics are derived, like blue and pink....... In the course of her or his life, the human being is then
made into a girl or woman or a boy or man in a complex process of rearing and education, social norms
and values, stereotypes, identification, images and traditions.
FOUCAULT :
Biopower is literally having power over bodies; it is "an explosion of numerous and
diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of bodies and the control of populations".
Where discipline is the technology deployed to make individuals behave, to be efficient
and productive workers, biopolitics is deployed to manage population; for example, to ensure a
healthy workforce"

SOCY Week 11 Reading

Rose (on Foucault): Governing the Soul - psy-professions

Themes in psychology post WWII:

View of professional psychology as necessary to maximisation of human
resources in institutions
Role of the group - focus on group analysis therapy & regulation
WWII led to dvlpmt of devices assessing psyche
Produced new set of social psychologies, psychotherapies & psychiatries
to document, interpret and utilise social relations > training and propaganda to build up
morale
New dvlpmts of subjectivity > self became calculable & manageable in new ways
Developments most important in industry debates about labour productivity, industrial

unrest
Work also given wider non-economic significance - psychological
healthy, family & social stability
Work no longer imposed obligation or undertaken for instrumental
reasons > now a means of self-fulfilment & self-actualisation
Linking of private sphere of family with gvmts objectives - rearing & well-being of
children with general welfare of society
Since WWII psychology provides language by which to identify
problems and concerns with rearing of children
Psych has established norms of desirable childhood development &
behaviour

17

These norms disseminated through pop lit., advertising & culture

generally
In gap between ideals and reality - anxiety and
disappointment generated in adults > seek professional guidance to manage
discrepancy
Nature and implication of therapeutic culture of the self
Free, rational, autonomous self = creation of western capitalist
democracies
Psychological theories also play key roles in birth of new concept of the
self
Selves are constructed & governed in psychological terms - subject to
self-inspection & examining
Management of contemporary self distinctive
1.
Personal & subjective capacities of citizens incorporated in to scope of public powers
Manifested in complex gvmt apparatus concerning child
2.
Management of subjectivity has become central task for the modern organisation
Statistics - transcribes attributes of population into form which could be used in political
arguments and administrative decisions
Used to draw conclusion about changing rates of pathology -capacities of
subjects becoming available to gvmt in new way
Psychological sciences enabled human powers to be transformed in to material that could
provide the basis for calculation
Expertise of subjectivity has become fundamental to contemporary governing of
individuals and self-governing - not through collusion with state in controlling/conditioning
subjects - but through persuasion inherent in its truths, anxieties stimulated by its norms &
attraction of images of self it offers
Gvmt works by acting at a distance upon individuals life choices - forging symmetry
between individual attempts to make life worthwhile & political values of profitability, efficiency
and social order
Delicate & minute infiltration of ambitions of regulation into persons
experience as subjects
Irony - we believe that in making subjectivity central in our personal
lives, we are choosing our freedom

18

SOCY Readings Week 10 - Race

Poynting
Not traditional race riot - no legacy of slavery/musl; generations of discrimination
Rather, in nature of pogrom - attack by members of dominant ethnic
group against minority
Causes
Media hysteria - following bashing of lifeguards - causal trigger, inciting
hate crime
Shock hocks - instructing on Australian way
'Tabloid sociology' - describing supposedly anti-social, foreign behaviour
of immigrant groups
Symbolic nature of Australian beach - national icon - added to emotional
reaction
Permission to hate
Delivered by states who decline to act against it
State racism via ethnically targeted surveillance, harassment, secret
police, detention without trial etc. > interpreted as moral licence for racial attacks
If state vilifies religious/ethnic group - white-thinking individuals feel
justified in personal attacking enemy
Vilification of Muslims greatly exacerbated since 9/11
Parallels in media/political message and public chanting
Howards denial of actual racism - supporting dislike of elitist political correctness
Neither government nor media willing to accept responsibility for Conulla - denying
racism, instead citing criminality, reasonable frustration and alcohol
Disproportionate focus on reprisal attacks - fear of ethnic crime
Moral panic - Lebanese Australian man given jail time for burning Aus flag - 'emotional
injury
In contrast, white Anglo man with far more serious offences granted bail
On whole, Australian multiculturalism broadly successful, but taken backwards by neoconservative governments

Garvey
Article - somewhat dated - presenting his ideas on the role and perception of Indigenous
people as new and alternative - instead they are fairly widely held across population and taught in
school
Origins of racism
'Terra nullius - notion that Australia was devoid of civilised life
Protection Policy (1890s - mid 1900s) - Aborginal people seen as dying race
Lasting repercussions of policies of that era
Segregationist > assimilationist policies
attaining a manner of living similar to that of Austraians
legal pressure to assimilate enforced through bureaucratic structures
Attitudinal remnants seen in opposition to native title
Many still hold stereotypes of passive, simple, unsophisticated people
Questioning of contemporary Indigenous identity

19

Stolen children described as con - is this still a commonly held belief

though??
Question of debate - existence of races - push to eradicate race from public terminology
Racist and prejudiced thought learn in school environments

self-fulfilling prophecy - if consistently labelled with derogatory terms,

can begin to identify with them
Those that pass for white often have to endure racist tirades from others who are
unaware of their Aboriginality
Assumption of normality offensive
Types of responses to racist attacks: confusion & shame, confrontation & resolution,
education or challenge in return
Observers to racism can be complicit via inaction
Informed non-involvement contributes indirectly to broader social
environment of acceptance of prejudice
Can occur at an individual level in mundane circumstances
Question should not be who are you?, but who are we together?'

20