C OP Y RIG H T © 2 022 EDIT ION

WVCS223 – KNOWLEDGE AND

POWER - WEEK 2
C REATED BY: PRO F. C H AN TELLE GR AY A N D D R AÏD A TER BLAN CH É-G R EEFF

1. KNOWLEDGE AND POWER

So far, we have discussed memes, memetics and ideology. Can you remember what these are? Take a
moment to describe each of these concepts and explain how they function together in the production,
distribution and perpetuation of social constructs. You may also want to jot down a few examples of
social constructs.

Recall that memetics, or the study of memes, aids our understanding of how information is created,
communicated and reproduced, but does not sufficiently explain why certain memes and social
constructs remain in circulation while others disappear or fade over time. It also does not give us much
information about our unconscious ideas, beliefs and actions. For this, we focused on ideology. You will
remember that we defined ideology as the set of conscious and unconscious beliefs and ideas that
inform our attitudes, ideals and behaviours. But we also saw that in order for us to be in a position to
critically evaluate social constructs in terms of the ideas and ideals they contain, their material
components, and their effects, we need to understand how the relations between social constructs,
ideology, knowledge and power. In this section we learn more about knowledge and power through the
work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault.

Take a moment to write down what you understand knowledge and power to mean. Again, there is no
single right or wrong answer here – the point is to write down what you think knowledge and power are.

Now watch the following video:

I NTR ODUC TIO N T O M ICHE L F O U CAU L T : P O W ER,

KNO WL ED GE, AN D T H E S EL F (GE AR ITY , 2 0 17 )

What did you notice about Foucault’s understanding of knowledge and power? How did it differ from
your definitions?

Most people think of knowledge as a mixture of information and skills that we acquire through learning
and experience. For Foucault, however, knowledge can only be understood in terms of various
regulatory mechanisms by which knowledge is constrained. This includes, for example, institutional
and administrative apparatuses which boost and maintain the exercise of power in a society – so they
can ‘order’ knowledge in specific ways (Foucault, 2002:273-274). In other words, knowledge is not a
blank slate – how it is disseminated and who has access to it are always tied to formations of power,
whether positive power (power to) or negative power (power over).

To understand how knowledge works, we have to understand something about history because, for
Foucault, “history can be used as a tool to show the limits of every system of thought and institutional
practice” (O’Farrell, 2005:61). In other words, by tracing the historical roots of our knowledges, we can
start to see that they are neither eternal nor universal, and that they emerged from specific contexts in
response to specific socio-cultural and political needs and desires.

In order to explain how dominant systems of knowledge production work, Foucault invents the concept
episteme. Simply, an episteme is a “period of history organised around, and explicable in terms of,
specific world-views and discourses” as characterised by its “institutions, disciplines, knowledges, rules
and activities” which are “consistent with those world-views” (Danaher, et al., 2000:xi). So the
Enlightenment is an episteme because it marks a specific historical period which is positively
associated with intense scientific, political and philosophical advancement, but negatively with large-
scale slavery. We identify this period by its institutions (slavery), world-views (its focus on rationality
and reason) and knowledges (for example, Newtonianism, and ideas of democracy, individual liberty
and freedom of expression, as advocated for by philosophers like Descartes and Locke).

Over time, the knowledge associated with a specific episteme starts functioning as unconscious rules
that govern or structure thought. But, because these rules are unconscious and thus not always
transparent, “even to those employing them” (Downing, 2008:9), they appear to be simply ‘the way
things are’ – this is why Foucault argues that epistemes constitute the “historical unconscious” or
“archive” of knowledge in any given period (Ibid.). One of Foucault’s main aims, as you may have
surmised, is to show how we can uncover the rules governing our present thought systems by situating
them historically.

Can you identify the current episteme? Think about the most pervasive aspect of our lives – it may be
so pervasive that it is almost unnoticeable. Of course, it is digital technology that is so pervasive as to
be almost unseen – so we can say that the current episteme is the digital episteme.

For Foucault it is not enough to understand how knowledge comes to constrain what is possible in
thought over time without understanding how it is tied to institutional and power apparatuses, such as
governmental or educational ones. In fact, “Foucault’s name is linked most famously with the notion of
power and also with the idea that knowledge and truth exist in an essential relation with social,
economic and political factors” (O’Farrell, 2005:96). But what exactly is power?
For most people, power is something like a capacity that is linked to authority, but this is precisely what it
is not for Foucault. Rather, he explains power as “a relation between different individuals and groups” that
“only exists when it is being exercised” (O’Farrell, 2015:99). In other words, Foucault does not think that
power is something that can be owned by a particular person or institution. For him, power exists in the
relations between people, institutions and organisations when it is exercised.

This also means that he views power as productive because it generates particular kinds of knowledge
and ways of being in the world.

Important for Foucault is not only that “mechanisms of power produce different types of knowledge”, but
also that these mechanism of power are often “aimed at investigating and collecting information on
people’s activities and existence” and that the collated knowledge is then used to further reinforce specific
formations and “exercises of power” (O’Farrell, 2015:101). We can start seeing now that what we think of
as knowledge and truth are in fact produced by the exercise of power between different individuals, fields
of study, organisations and institutions.

How is all this talk of knowledge and power related to social constructs? Well, think about how dominant
discourses organise how people are perceived and how they are allowed to behave. Can you start to
identity the connections between social constructs like race and the effects of power and knowledge they
exert on bodies? “Foucault uses the term ‘micro-power’ to explain how discourses” influence “the ways in
which bodies are understood and function” and how these discourses – and thus the way we perceive
bodies and subjectivity – change over time (Danaher, et al., 2000:134).

In the next section, we look at our current episteme – the digital episteme – and try to bring together
everything we have learnt about how information is produced and reproduced in and across societies,
and how ideology, knowledge and power help or hinder these processes of communication.

EXTRA VIEWING (NOT COMPULSORY):

FOUCAULT POWER AND KNOWLEDGE

(THE SCHOOL OF LIFE, 2016)
2. CRITICALLY ANALYSING SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS
We began this study unit by looking at how information is transferred in societies (via memes) and how
we can study memes (via memetics). Recall that memes are self-replicating units of information that are
passed from one human mind to another. Why do we say that they are self-replicating? Well, because
memes are seen as cultural equivalents of genes – so, like genes, memes respond to selective pressures
by mutating and producing similar copies of themselves. This can happen in a number of ways, ranging
from gossip to rituals to digital replication – internet memes being an example of the latter.

Many memes are ideologically loaded, but this does not necessarily mean that they are dogmatic –
although they can be! Rather, it means that memes have to do with ideas and ideals. You will remember
that we defined ideology as conscious and unconscious beliefs, concepts and myths that animate our
traditions, attitudes, lifestyle tendencies and ideals, including our ethical ideals. So ideology is something
we do, think and try to accomplish. In some sense, then, we are all ideological because we all behave
according to our beliefs. Žižek complicates this definition a bit by arguing that ideology is a kind of illusion
that we create as a kind of buffer between our psyches and the traumatic events we experience in life.
This, he says, is also why it is so difficult to break free from ideologies – because shattering our illusions
can be painful. But, because they have unconscious content that can cause us harm, we need to learn
how to decode ideologies and the social constructs they relate to in terms of 1) the sets of ideas and
ideals they contain; 2) the organisations and institutions (or material components) that help to spread
them; and their effects in and across societies. This, precisely, is what we will learn to do in this section.
By asking and answering these questions, we are learning how to critically analyse and evaluate social
constructs. To ‘critically evaluate’ something means to provide your own carefully considered opinion,
analysis or assessment – so critical evaluation exceeds a mere descriptive review. When we say that the
evaluation has to be critical, this does not mean ‘to criticise’. Critique, although it can be critical, refers
rather to an opinion that is grounded in comparative research and is based on the most reliable sources.
It involves engagement with a text – evaluating its content – rather than simply accepting what it says or
outright refusing to consider it.

Let’s start with the construction of gender that you learnt about in Study Unit 2. Look at the
following meme:
PHOT O B Y MONSTE RA: HTTP S : / / W WW.PEXELS.COM/PHOTO/MO C K - U P - N A M E - T A G S - O N - P L A T E - W I T H - P L A N T - 6 3 7 3 8 4 4 /
 1. What are some of the ideas and ideals portrayed in this meme?
2. What are the material components related to these ideas and ideals? In other words, what kinds of
organisations and institutions help to spread them?
3. What are some of the effects that these ideas and ideals have had – and continue to have – in our
societies?

To answer these questions, it helps to decode some of the main concepts contained therein – so let’s
start by defining sexism and feminism.

Sexism refers to gendered prejudice that leads to certain stereotypes and even discrimination. Sexism is
born from patriarchal contexts (patriarchy means “the rule of the fathers”) which privilege men because it
is thought that they are more ‘naturally’ suited to positions of power and leadership, whereas women are
thought to be more ‘naturally’ suited to domestic work, such as cooking. We already saw in Study Unit 2
that there is nothing natural about these assumptions – they are simply conventions that became
normative over time because of socio-political pressures. Through advertisements, Hollywood films and
other media, these norms are implicitly and explicitly reinforced – so much so that they become
invisibilised, meaning they become assumed to be the ‘natural’ way of things.

Feminism explicitly questions these assumptions, conventions and norms. Most feminists agree that
patriarchy is structural, meaning that all the structures and relations in a society rely on male dominance
and coercion. For feminists, a “patriarchal society” is one which describes “a systemic bias against
women” (Napikoski, 2020). Feminists thus reject the idea that there is some kind of natural hierarchy
between women and men based on their abilities and needs. As such, feminists question the idea that
men should be given positions of power and leadership simply by virtue of being men. They also reject
notions related to the ‘natural’ division of labour according to which women are more ‘naturally’ suited to
domestic work such as cooking, cleaning and raising children.

Now that we have these definitions, we can start analysing the meme and the social constructions of
gender it contains. In response to the first question, it becomes obvious that the meme contains ideas
about the normative assignment of gender roles to activities such as cooking. The meme is funny
because it highlights an extreme view of either position: for sexism, that men shouldn’t have to cook and,
for feminism, that women shouldn’t have to cook. The ideals we find here are, of course, related to
sexism and feminism: whereas sexism expresses patriarchal ideals – which are necessarily hierarchical –
feminism expresses ideals of equality. That is, feminism “focuses on the idea that since women comprise
one-half of the world population, true social progress can never be achieved without the complete and
spontaneous participation of women” (Lewis, 2021).
These ideas are spread via institutions like the government, religion, the nuclear family and even the
media. (Recall some of the work we did in Study Unit 2.) Think also of your favourite romantic comedy
film. What are the gender stereotypes portrayed in this film? Even the genre of the film is considered
more ‘feminine’ than ‘masculine’. Accordingly, Wühr and colleagues argue that women “are supposed to
like romantic and melodramatic movies, which are snidely called ‘chick flicks’ or ‘tearjerkers’, as well as
comedy, but to dislike action and horror movies. In contrast, men are supposed to like action and horror
movies, but to dislike romantic and melodramatic movies” (Wühr et al., 2017: 1-2). Over time, these ideas
become normalised. Although not all norms are harmful, many can become harmful because they can be
used to evaluate people according to some ‘standard’ – a made-up standard – that excludes those who
do not measure up to these supposed ‘normal’ classifications. This is why Foucault thinks that social
norms are linked to knowledge and power. Do you remember what he says about knowledge and power?
Foucault explains power as that which is exercised in the relations between people, institutions and
organisations. When it is exercised, it produces particular kinds of knowledge and ways of being in the
world – and this links to the third question, namely the effects that social constructs have had, and
continue to have, in our societies.

What are some of the effects that sexism and feminism have had in our societies? Sexism negatively
affects women by rendering them economically dependent, exposing them to gender-based violence and
excluding them from decision-making positions. But sexism does not only affect women negatively.
Patriarchy, from which sexism is born, also has negative effects on masculinity. For example, it
legitimises hegemonic masculinity – a dominant form of masculinity which not only functions to
subordinate women to men, but also devaluates non-normative expressions of masculinity, such as any
masculine expression that is not overtly macho (Connell, 2001). Feminism, for its part, has had positive
and negative effects. Positively, it has exposed common misconceptions about the ‘naturalness’ of
gender stereotypes and gender roles. More negatively, some feminists have also devaluated non-
normative expressions of femininity (transphobia being typical example – just think of J.K. Rowling and
the TERF and cancel culture wars!).

3. SUMMARY
We have reached the end of Study Unit 3. You should now be familiar with what social constructs are,
what their functions are (both positive and negative), how they work and spread, and how we can decode
them. You should also be able to give an account of a few examples of social constructs and how they
developed over time. In the next Study unit, you will learn more about how to have difficult conversations
about social constructs with people you differ from.