ABSTRACT
The most important secondary idea in Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge is his understanding of power as dispersed, or spread out. While his discussion of power might appear secondary, simply supporting his general aim of explaining the constructed nature of sexual categories, it is in fact crucial to understanding the full complexity of his work. Foucault extends his discussion of sexuality to propose a new theory of power, criticizing the view that power acts in a one-way manner, from top to bottom. Foucault's idea of power as dispersed seeks to explain how power operates and how resistance to power might take place. Without abandoning Foucault's overall aim of disturbing stereotypical ideas of sexual identities, Ann Stoler's text offered a productive, culturally specific critique of Sexuality Vol. 1, and opened up new ways of using Foucault's ideas in the study of colonial rule.
