The Cartography of Knowledge and Power: Foucault Reconsidered

Commenting on his “obsession with space,” in several interviews Michel Foucault clarified his ideas concerning the spatialization of knowledge and power, adding new insights, but in such a way that further explication is called for. ¹ But nowhere in Foucault’s texts or para-texts can one find a systematic account of the way spatial analysis is employed and spatial relations are to be understood. This lack of an explicit, unequivocal meaning characterizes Foucault’s use of other concepts, most notably the concept of power. Although Foucault, in some later interviews, tried to spell out a coherent account of the way power and subjectivity were used, ² space has nevertheless remained an orphan notion. In Foucault’s text, spatial metaphors are mixed with literal spatial descriptions; ³ different spatial frameworks or settings are distinguished as if space were a genus with its own species, ⁴ and no explicit distinction is made between space and place.