ABSTRACT:

Dispositive – as an methodological tool – in the historical understanding of total institutions and the forming of subjects

The starting point of this presentation is a questioning of Erving Goffman’s total institution as a concept that mainly has focused on an internal perspective on the logics of the institution, and the question of how subjectivication in a total institution. Thus there is a risk of underemphasizing how the internal dynamics are influenced by various social, political and economic forms of rationality that affects the institution's internal logics and social practices. The presentation argues that such an analysis can be made by using Michel Foucault's term dispositive. The dispositive offers an analysis of how the function of the total institution changes over time and how social rationales affects the institutions internal power technologies and the construction of the subject. Based on three dispositives, the dispositive of discipline, the dispositive of security and the dispositive of governmentality, the presentation demonstrates how such an analysis can be approached. The presentation provides examples of how different dispositive analysis have been approached, and this will be reflected in accordance with the methodological issue at the conference.

The empirical data in the presentation will consist of different examples of total institutions in a present and in a historical context. The main research question is thus: how can dispositive serve as an analytical framing in the analysis of the total institution that transcend internal perspective as sketched by Erving Goffman? And: how can an analysis informed by the dispositive lead an analysis of subjectivity in total institution? The argument in the presentation is that such an analysis can benefit dispositive as an analytical framing. The presentation aims at generalizing new insights in the questioning of how power functions both in what we may call institutions of discipline, but likewise on modern total institutions in which power works through values as being self-responsible for being a loyal and ethical citizen.