Foucault, power and culture

Abstract

This paper explores the powerful works of French philosopher, Michel Foucault and examines its implications for understanding power and cultural relations. Despite this, there has been very little Foucauldian analysis of culture and its relationship to power (Powell 2012). Hence, the article discusses the relationship between Foucault’s conceptual tools of ‘power’, the emergence of ‘the modern subject’, the individual and the important concept of ‘body’ as they apply to a methodological and epistemological understanding of culture in contemporary society.