ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how far Foucault's work on confession, care of the self and governmentality may offer a different understanding and analysis of the power relations embedded in and animating such initiatives and their effects. From this perspective, such projects may be read as technical incitements to practices of confessional truth-telling where young people learn to produce truths about themselves, governing themselves accordingly as certain kinds of subjects, in accordance with a contemporary strategy of governmentality. Drawing on Foucault's research permits one to consider that such a conventional view neglects that modern modes of power work not just as a negative, repressive, prohibitive force, but also as a positive, productive and enabling force. The productivity of power is realised precisely through practices that enable and promote, rather than repress, silence or deny the expression of voice and the formation of subjectivity and truth.
