Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
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Arguably, some forms of social power have major unintended and uncontrolled
effects irreducible to their causes
'Power over', some critics of Foucault have observed, is a frequently
unforeseen and unplanned result of the intentional use of 'power to'. It
thus greatly exceeds the intentions and aims of those who exercise it, and
may even disrupt their plans and activities. Though Foucault realised this,
he paid little attention to the mechanisms whereby unintended effects
are produced. The global financial crisis of 2008-9 is a prime example
of these mechanisms. Financial services professionals used a tremendous
amount of knowledge and information to lend/invest colossal sums of
money, yet the result of their collective actions, realised through vari-
ous investment funds and new financial instruments (like collateralised
debt obligations), was ultimately 'irrational' for them and painfully real
for hundreds of millions of people. Banks went bust, people's homes
were repossessed by mortgage lenders, a 'credit crunch' hurt businesses in
need of loans, and so on. The further knock-on effects have, quite unin-
tentionally, been good for the non-human world. A period of economic
recession has temporarily reduced the West's ecological footprint.
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If social power is decentred, as Foucault argued, then there must be the possibility
of resistance to it
Though his later writings began to address the issue, Foucault's early and
middle writings said little about opposition to social power. Indeed, some
of his followers argue that 'subjects do
not
cease to be governed when they
undertake certain practices we can categorize as “resistance” or “dissent” '
(Odysseos, 2011: 440). Critics have pointed out that ostensibly powerful
groups, institutions or individuals are only powerful in certain arenas and
relatively less powerful in others. Likewise, they've noted that those with
a relative lack of power in most arenas of life are nonetheless able to ques-
tion or challenge some of the power relations in which they're embroiled.
What's more, if social power was always wholly effective would it permit
room for analysts like Foucault to name and anatomise it? Presumably
not. Accordingly, John Scott defined power as 'the socially significant
affecting of one agent by another
in the face of possible resistance
' (Scott,
2001: 3, emphasis added).
This 'gap' between 'power to' and 'power over' has, to take a notable
example, been the consistent focus of political historian James Scott's
work since his germinal book
Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of peasant
resistance
(Scott, 1985). As Scott shows, even in the most unpropitious sit-
uations, people protest, in some cases removing or curtailing the powers
of important institutions and actors. Relatedly, cultural studies scholars
reaching back to the 1970s have explored how 'sub-cultures' and 'counter-
cultures' form, and how (un)successful their members are at resisting the
force of dominant social norms and practices. While not all resistance to
power is effective, it would be cynical to suggest that even ostensibly suc-
cessful acts of opposition are, 'really', just incremental accommodations
