Foucault and Circulations of Power
Michel Foucault, a key theorist of the Post-Structuralist movement (Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today, 2nd ed., 284-8)--
| power "circulates" rather than descending vertically down a hierarchical system (281) | circulation of power occurs by means of exchange | exchange of material goods by legal and illegal means | exchange of people by cultural institutions | exchange of ideas by discourses |
| discourses are social languages which create and are created by ideologies | discourses allow negotiation of the exchanges of power by establishing categories of regulated behavior and norms for that behavior | discourses are in a state of constant dynamic play with each other | no monolithic "spirit" controls the discourses of any historical era, though designating a given period an "era" can make it seem as if one did so | no totalizing historical explanation can capture all of the dynamic exchange of power because historiography operates within and is a product of the system it tries to describe |