ABSTRACT
The subject, single or collective, is visible because it is within particular discourses and, at the same time, external to others. Genealogy itself is a form of critique which makes visible that which has remained subjugated by dominant discourses, and in particular that of the law. Allied to genealogy as critique, in the sense of making visible, there is a second way in which power/knowledge is positive. The genealogy of power relations within the school reveals discipline and punishment not to be a personal prerogative, but a function which is realised in the practice of all concerned and in the identities of its personnel. Genealogy paints a wholly repressive picture of teacher and pupils depersonalised, and subjected without choice, autonomy or control to a web of power. In the History of Sexuality, M. Foucault gives the following example of the positive and the negative aspects of genealogy, of visibility being both subjecting and subjectifying.
