ABSTRACT
The chapter outlines key themes from the work of Michel Foucault, focusing on his conceptualizations of the subject, different modes of power, and the regimes of practice that configure the taken-for-granted truths of our everyday lives. It suggests that Foucault’s commitment to historicizing social and institutional orders and subjecting them to critical scrutiny resonates with the anthropological approach that seeks to “make the familiar strange” in order to foment fresh lines of inquiry. To demonstrate, the chapter applies Foucauldian concepts and sensibilities to ethnographic research in the University, drawing on research conducted by students in residential dorms and scrutinizing the array of services designed to optimize student and faculty time management and self-care. It suggests two arenas in which Foucault’s theorizations and styles of investigation need to be supplemented: sites where multiple modes of power collide, and sites where critique is embryonic, embodied, and not (yet) available for explicit reflection.
