ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses both the strengths and limitations of Foucault's work, particularly with regard to his notions of power, governmentality and processes of subjectification. It highlights some of the key themes within Foucault's work with particular reference to his analysis of power and of the debates that arose from them. The situating of power with the monarch was, for Foucault, one of the central features of the transition from feudalism to modernity. In a period of great social turbulence, of conflict between various feudal groups, the monarch could present himself as arbiter between competing interest groups. The attraction of Foucault's theories for feminism is clear to see given his focus on the family and its governance and on the more micro aspects of power relations. Foucault's disciplinary techniques of surveillance, measurement, classification and normalisation were developed within closed institutions such as the prison and asylum and he then applied this model to wider society.
