Foucault and Sociology

TL;DR: The authors examines the demographic categories in the first few US censuses, which are asymmetrical combinations of race and legal status not mandated by the US Constitution and suggests that politicians draw on widespread social categories when creating census categories, showing how state and social influences interact to create the information in censuses.

Abstract: Abstract This paper focuses on the mechanisms of power and discipline that exist within a psychiatric institution in Transylvania, Romania. This is done through combining the theoretical perspectives of Michel Foucault and of Erving Goffman. While Foucault looks at power as the result of internalization through disciplinary mechanisms and discourses, Goffman puts emphasis on the microinteractions and spatial arrangement that shape the institution. By bringing these two lines of thought together, this study tries to construct an analytical tool that reveals how surveillance, normalization and hierarchization operate concomitantly at structural and interpersonal levels. Using qualitative methods, more precisely participant observation, formal and informal interviews, the research explores patients’ daily lives, the dynamics between individuals (be it staff or patient), the regulation of space and the interdependence of written and unwritten rules. It is suggested that institutional power is exercised not only through correction or direct surveillance but also through strategies and those strategies are built around visibility, divestment of space, documentation and collective self-monitoring. This, in turn, generates docile but truncated forms of subjectivity. The study also highlights the continuous existence of disciplinary strategies despite there being ongoing processes of deinstitutionalization, therefore showing how this psychiatric institution creates regulated, individualized and hierarchized existences.

TL;DR: The energy transition in Sardinia presents a complex interplay between extractivism and community resilience. While the transition holds promise for new forms of energy governance that prioritize commons, current strategies prioritize innovation in raw materials rather than governance. This work analyzes the case of Sardinia to illustrate the contradictions between top-down and bottom-up approaches, highlighting the potential for energy communities to forge alternative policymaking strategies.

TL;DR: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as discussed by the authors is a seminal work in the history of science and philosophy of science, and it has been widely cited as a major source of inspiration for the present generation of scientists.

TL;DR: The Eye of Power: A Discussion with Maoists as mentioned in this paper discusses the politics of health in the Eighteenth Century, the history of sexuality, and the Confession of the Flesh.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an analysis of knowledge in everyday life in the context of a theory of society as a dialectical process between objective and subjective reality, focusing particularly on that common-sense knowledge which constitutes the reality of everyday life for the ordinary member of society.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss points of convergence and disagreement with institutionally oriented research in economics and political science, and locate the "institutional" approach in relation to major developments in contemporary sociological theory.