1 University of Amsterdam
Taking Selfies With Foucault
Selfie-Discipline and Selfie-Technologies in Modern Societies
By
Robin Jerrel Zwaan
MA. THESIS
10272178 23 June 2017
Philosophy
Graduate School of Humanities Supervisor: Mw. Dr. K.V.Q. Vintges Second reader: Mw. Dr. A. van Rooden
2 Abstract
This thesis explores the impact of the phenomenon of the (video) selfie on the modern subject from a Foucauldian point of view. This inquiry will, for one thing, investigate the way in which the practice of both the taking and the sharing of (video) selfies disciplines the modern subject into the mold of the ‘docile body’ comprising the norms of social productivity, beauty and health. On the other hand, this research will examine, from the perspective of Foucault’s technologies of the self, how both the taking and the sharing of (video) selfies can be understood as an eminent neoliberal governmental technique, again in relation to the aspects of beauty, health and social productivity. In the end, the phenomenon of the (video) selfie will present how disciplinary on the one hand, and governmental techniques on the other, are able to strengthen each other in order to reach the ideal neoliberal subject; the entrepreneur who rationally calculates his satisfaction in life.
3
Table of Contents
Introduction p. 4
Chapter 1: Power in Mid-Foucault p. 9
Chapter 2: Self-Techniques in the Final-Foucault p. 18
Chapter 3: The (Video) Selfie p. 28
Chapter 4: The (Video) Selfie Practice According to Mid-Foucault p. 33 Chapter 5: The (Video) Selfie Practice According to the Final-Foucault p. 42
Conclusion p. 52
4 Introduction
Due to my Instagram – a popular social media platform which primarily serves the purpose of posting photographs and short videos – spoof page (#lijsttrekkervvdnieuwwest), where I present myself as the regional leader of the biggest (neo)liberal party of the Netherlands, I have the possibility to present myself in a different way than I would normally do. In a snap I am, by means of various modern digital technologies, able to adopt the identity of a power-hungry and somewhat pathetic politician. On this page, I predominantly post weird images of myself – selfies – guided by extravagant liberal (anti-socialist) utterances. Even though I created the page merely as a silly joke, it made me think about how the ‘digital’ and the ‘self’ are in a strange, but stringent way connected to each other in modern times. This absurd creation of an ‘alternative identity’ is one of the infinite possibilities that the ‘digital revolution’ presented to the modern man. But this is just an innocent and superficial play with the notions of identity and the self. The impact of digital technologies on the actual modern subject go, in fact, a lot further.
That is to say, the unlimited technological developments of recent years have had an enormous impact on all facets of life. Whether it takes the form of the omnipresence of digital images in the streetscape, the dazzling amount of flashes generated by digital cameras at music concerts, or the zombie-like smartphone fixation of commuters on the street – digital technologies have made their appearance throughout all layers of society. Billions of people, throughout the whole world, are connected to each other by the medium of something which is collectively known as the internet. These networks entail ‘spaces that are changing the way we think, the nature of our sexuality, the form of our communities’, and, moreover, ‘our very identities’ (Turkle 9). Hence, with these new technologies, a fundamentally new dimension in regard to the shaping of the modern subject has emerged. Some say that these modern technologies offer a certain freedom and beneficial range of possibilities which makes life a lot easier, while others suggest that ‘it may become the instrument of global surveillance and personal alienation’ (Aycock 1). An interesting discussion, but this thesis is probably not the right place to resolve such a colossal debate. Therefore, I will try to steer my focus, first of all, towards the influence of the omnipresence of digital images in regard to the modern subject.
5 For one thing, the introduction of smartphones – including the corresponding digital cameras and digital screens – have partly created a cultural shift from words to pictures (Crowe 167). This means that besides actual language, visual language begins to play an increasingly important role in modern communication. Modern man communicates by means of images such as pictures, memes and emoticons. And with this arrival of visual, image-based communication new patterns of thinking and expression appeared. Images, furthermore, ‘play an important role in how we experience being in the world and increasingly, due to the ubiquity of online interaction, how we ‘shape’ our world (Tiidenberg and Cruz 79). That is to say, the omnipresence of digital images in modern society alters the way in which the modern subject experiences both himself and others. The way one thinks, speaks and sees oneself is subject to a fundamental change, due to the introduction of mobile screens and cameras. In other words; the rising emphasis on images provide the modern subject with possibilities for new patterns of thinking, and an alternative channel for presenting his ideas or feelings.
Now, it is exactly these modifications in regard to the constitution of the modern subject, which came along with the ‘rise of the image’, that will be explored in this research. But, because the idea of the ‘modern visual-based society’ is still a too broad and vague concept to be meaningful in regard to this particular inquiry, I will, again, concretize this idea. The efforts of the current investigation are focused on to the popular visual practice of the taking and sharing of ‘selfies’. In order to do this, it is, at first, necessary to briefly outline what is precisely meant with ‘the selfie’ in this particular research. The oxford dictionary defines the selfie as ‘a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media’ (Oxford 2013). The most important inference from this definition is that both the taker and the subject of the photo are one and the same person. The selfie, moreover, is ‘a self-portrait made in a reflective object or from arm’s length’ (Tiidenberg and Cruz 78). But, for the sake of the argument, I will expand this definition in such a way that besides photographs, also videos shot from the same position, and with the same composition, are included - I will, from now on, describe these as ‘(video) selfies’. It is thus both photographs and videos shot from the front-camera of the smartphone that I will focus on during this inquiry.
6 In order to carry out this research, I have to define my understanding of concepts such as the subject and the self. When one thinks about the self – or the subject – it is hard to get a concrete image of what this really is. People talk about this self – about themselves – a lot, they try to define who they are; to characterize what specific personality traits distinguish them from others. And seek, thereby, to get a better understanding of who they are throughout life. By better understanding themselves people try to achieve a happier life, a deeper satisfaction in their activities, and perhaps even forms of liberation from external forces. What makes the notion of the self a rather complex idea is that it is both something we experience on a daily basis (the human being who we are in everyday life in our interactions with our surroundings), and a scientific concept (the analysis of, for example, the construction of identities through discourse) (Dervin 3). From a broad angle, the self can be described as ‘the particular being any person is, whatever it is about each of us that distinguishes you or me from others’, furthermore, the self ‘draws the parts of our existence together, persists through changes, or opens up the way to becoming who we might or should be’ (Seigel 3).
Throughout the history of philosophy, a lot has been written on a deeper level of understanding about the self or the subject. This has led to a multitude of different opinions, perceptions and beliefs in regard to the nature of the human subject. But, it is not the intention of this particular research to present a complete and satiating overview of this debate. Instead, I am interested in how the platform of the (video) selfie serves as an articulation of social structures and power relations in society, and how this practice, thereby, has noticeable impact on how the modern subject is constituted. How does the phenomenon of the (video) selfie relate to overall structures of power? How does the constant exposure to images of oneself affect the relation with the self? Therefore, I want to focus in particular on the relation between the self and its social context; a field where philosophy and the social sciences meet. From this perspective, I want to examine how the modern practice of the (video) selfie relates to the idea that the self is subsidiary to social and cultural structures and relations. To investigate this, I will appeal to the work of French social philosopher Michel Foucault. Although Foucault did not live to see the technological developments in question, his work still seems perfectly fitted to evaluate and examine the phenomenon of the (video) selfie. For one
7 thing, because his ideas correlate with the shaping of the subject through everyday discursive encounters, such as the (video) selfie. In extension, his work lends itself very well for demonstrating how the digital medium of the (video) selfie serves as a channel for internalizing certain forms of power in modern society. But, on the other hand, these modern visual practices, in line with Foucault, also have an eminently collective and political impact (Warfield 3). And since Foucault’s work had a great influence on the way the relation between power, the social environment and the modern self is understood, the combining of both Foucault’s ideas and the practice of the (video) selfie seems to provide a fruitful heuristic for this research (Bos 20-29). Even though Foucault covered an enormous scope of study ground, he did not particularly discuss how power operates on a more visual level; how power is, for instance, immanent in a visual discourse. For this reason, I want to assimilate this dimension in my research and thereby, possibly, contribute something to the rich framework of knowledge that Foucault and his heirs created.
In the first two chapters, I will elaborate on Foucault’s work. In the first chapter, for one thing, Foucault’s mid-work will be considered in regard to the constitution of the subject through power structures with a particular focus on the Panopticon and the confession practice. Furthermore, in the second chapter, containing an overview of Foucault’s final work, primarily based on the idea of self-techniques, will be discussed especially concerning the ideas on neoliberal governmental practices and the entrepreneurial self. After the presentation of my theoretical framework, I will give a brief outline of the academic debate regarding the (video) selfie and its impact on the modern subject. In the final two chapters I will apply the highlighted concepts from my theoretical framework to the phenomenon of the (video) selfie. I want to execute my analysis particularly in relation to the aspects where, I want to argue, the influence of the (video) selfie practice is the largest; i.e. respectively social achievements, beauty and health.
In the end, the central aim of this inquiry is to examine the phenomenon of the (video) selfie, and its impact on the constitution of the modern subject. I will, hereby, focus, among other things, on the shaping of the self through power structures, the notion of agency and the showcasing of neoliberal self-optimization. The main question
8 I want to answer is how the self is constituted through the practice of the (video) selfie in terms of the mid- and the final-Foucault?
9
Chapter 1: Power in Mid-Foucault
Overall, Foucault made a major contribution to the prevailing body of knowledge regarding the connection between power and the modern subject. By investigating how power practices have ‘constructed men’s subjectivities through the ages’ of Western society, he especially focused ‘on power practices that are entangled with the social and human sciences’ (Vintges 29-30). He, for instance, presented in a convincing manner how ‘practices and institutional relations within which Western individuals’ sense of themselves as free agents have been constructed, so that their very sense of their freedom binds them inside the systems of discourse or power relations that form their consciousness and direct their actions’ (Seigel 604). Furthermore, he argues that ‘subjects are always subjected’ to power, ‘they are the point of application of normative techniques and disciplines, but they are never sovereign subjects’, he emphasizes, moreover, ‘that there is no sovereign, founding subject, a universal form of subject to be found everywhere’ (Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture 50). Hence, according to Foucault, the self is no universal or timeless phenomenon, instead, the self is something that takes shape in a certain way on a specific moment in time (Bos 218). Consequently, his view moves around the idea that the subject is always constituted in relation to external forces, it is his understanding that the conditions whereupon the self is structured are shaped and organized through cultural and socio-political power structures. Furthermore, the idea is that through its daily social practices the subject is subjected to certain restrictions, which have a huge impact on the general constitution of the self. In the end, the restriction of freedom that is imposed on the subject is executed ‘through historically identifiable social practices that subjected people to the conditions in which their subjectivity was formed’ (Seigel 609).
It is, moreover, important to mention that Foucault in particular distinguishes himself with his idea of the two-fold practice in which the subject is constituted. According to his understanding, man, in modern society, is at the same time subjected to power structures and constituted as a subject. For this double constitution of an individual as subject, Foucault often used the French term assujettissement (subject-ed), which is a combination of the concepts of subjection (the imposing of control over a person) and subjectivation (the phenomenon of the constitution of individuals as subjects) (Seigel 604). Hence, being constituted as a subject, means at the same time
10 being subjected to certain power structures. These two cannot act independently of each other. Therefore, the modern subject is at all times managed by certain power relations; being a subject means being subjected to specific forms of power.
But, besides this understanding ‘that the subject is constituted through practices of subjection’, Foucault, in his final work, also presents the possibility for ‘a more autonomous way’ of self-shaping, ‘through practices of liberation, or liberty, as in Antiquity, on the basis, of course, of a number of rules, styles, inventions to be found in the cultural environment’ (Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture 50-51). Hence, in this later work, suddenly a glimpse appears, which carries the idea that besides the strict constitution of the modern subject through power relations, there is also a prospect for an active and somewhat more free form of self-creation. It is, moreover, exactly this idiosyncratic, two-fold way of establishing the modern subject – on the one hand through the subjection to power structures, and, on the other hand, by means of a perhaps relatively more autonomous creating of the self – that will be of interest in the upcoming analysis. This double understanding of self-constitution may look like a contradiction at first, but when investigated further, the two seem to complement each other, or at least not to exclude each other. In the end, this involves the possibility that the modern subject is both constituted by means of imposed power structures, and established via a chronic active relation to the self.
For the sake of the argument, Foucault’s different understandings – the constitution of the subject in consequence of power structures, and the constitution of the self through active self-technologies – are, in this particular research, attributed to respectively his mid and his final work. This clear division of his ideas is somewhat artificial and arbitrary, but helps to make a clearer point that will be valuable during the analysis.
Disciplinary Power
So, Foucault’s mid work – consisting of mainly Discipline and Punish (1975) and the first volume of The History of Sexuality (1976) – epitomizes his understanding of the modern subject constituted through power structures. In order to understand this perspective, it is reasonable to first take a look at Discipline and Punish, where he elaborates on the
11 idea of the constitution of the modern subject within ‘disciplinary society’. In Discipline
and Punish he introduces his concept of disciplinary power, or the power of
normalization, which will be of great importance throughout the rest of his work, and made him, moreover, ‘one of the most cited authors in the social sciences’ (Vintges 30). These disciplinary forms of power are not explicitly executed at the hand of the sovereign, instead, these forms of control are active at an everyday, local level, in an intuitive, empirical, and fragmented form (Foucault, Society Must Be Defended 250). Within this understanding, the modern man believes to be a free subject, but he is, in fact, subjected to coercive practices imposed by social and cultural conditions. The most striking, and perhaps the best-known part of Foucault’s work is his visual explanation of the workings of disciplinary power through the analogy of the Panopticon, an idea he lent from Jeremy Bentham.
In the construction of the Panopticon Foucault sees a laboratory of surveillance, by considering the architecture of this round prison one is able to understand the operation of disciplinary power in modern society. The idea is simple, the cells for the prisoners are constructed around a central prison tower, the watchtower. From this central place, the guard could in theory watch all the prisoners, while at the same time the prisoners could not see the guard. Therefore, the prisoners are aware of the fact that they could be under continuous observation, while this does not have to be the actual case. Consequently, the prisoners had to behave themselves since a guard could be watching, but in fact the actual presence of a guard in the watchtower is not necessary; the presence of the watchtower – the possibility for them being watched – ensures that the prisoners behaved themselves. The Panopticon, for this reason, symbolizes the idea of conscious and permanent visibility which assures the automatic functioning of disciplinary power in modern society (Foucault, Discipline and Punish 201). The present-day man, who is constantly subjected through a field of visibility, and is, furthermore, conscious of himself being visible, attends to certain power constraints, and he, moreover, adheres to them unconsciously; ‘he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection’ (Foucault, Discipline and Punish 202-203). It is, thus, the continuous possibility of being watched, the opportunity of being investigated and examined, that causes the subject to behave in according to certain norms; to act ‘normal’. Foucault
12 uses the Panopticon as an analogy, but these practices are also active outside the regions of the prison. Therefore, not only prisoners are subjected to these forms of power; ‘it operates on all individuals formed in modern institutions such as armies, factories, and schools, where people are judged and ordered in accord with some standard of “normality”’ (Seigel 619). The general framework of norms work, for one thing, on the consciousness or sensibility of the human mind, but at the same time also on the body of the modern man. Something is created that can be called the docile body; a body that is subjected to power and, thereby, transformed and improved in regard to the norms of society. That is to say, these docile bodies are eminently suited for the new forms of (neoliberal) politics and the associated prominent place for economics in society. This means, in the end, that both the subject’s thoughts, and his bodily attitudes, are normalized and regulated. The power of the system of norms, moreover, is executed and maintained by institutions, by people among each other, but also on an individual level; by people on themselves.
Furthermore, disciplinary power is a mechanism that regulates the subject; it tames people to behave according to the norm, and, thereby, produces the ‘normal human being’. For Foucault, the Panopticon is a diagram of the mechanism of disciplinary power in its ideal form (Discipline and Punish 205). That is to say, disciplinary power has an eminently efficient, productive and active dimension; it intensifies and strengthens human productivity. Discipline functions, in other words, as a method to create useful individuals through the strict regulation of the social sphere and human behavior. The panoptic structure represents the perfect exercise of power because it (1) reduces the number of people who exercise it, and (2) at the same time increases the number of those on whom it is exercised, and finally (3) it has the possibility to intervene at any given moment (Foucault, Discipline and Punish 206). In the end, disciplinary power is so productive and powerful because it makes sure that the subject becomes the instrument of its own surveillance.
The origins of the disciplinary methods lay, for a large part, in the human sciences. That is, these forms of power exist by virtue of the study of human behavior; i.e. the examination and investigation of human behavior by means of the empirical sciences arisen in the course of the 18th century. The obtained empirical knowledge made it possible to order, observe, describe and establish ‘the facts’ of the world and its
13 population (Foucault, Discipline and Punish 226). Therefore, the emergence of the science of human behavior in the 18th century, led, at the same time, to the rise of disciplinary institutions such as prisons, the army, schools, hospitals and mental health institutions. In all these institutions, moreover, practices like examination, inquisition and observation begun to emerge in substantially rigid forms, and, furthermore, also started to spill over into the complete society. Thus, thanks to these disciplinary institutions, society was able to move into something that Foucault called a disciplinary society (Bos 219). It is both in and through this disciplinary society – with its interwoven practices of examination and investigation – that the individual is controlled and limited to the end of the ‘normal’ human being (Vintges 30-31). In other words; the subject is continuously tamed, performed and restricted by being subjecting to the norms of society. This means, in the end, that ‘this diffuse and unlocatable social power became the agent out of which individuality was constructed, making it the vehicle through which modern people were governed and controlled’ (Seigel 619).
The Confession Practice and Biopower
After Discipline and Punish, Foucault started his project in regard to the history of sexuality. Among other things, he began study sexuality in order to demonstrate how power and truth – in a similar manner as in Discipline and Punish – influence the establishment of the modern subject (Bos 219). But, whereas in Discipline and Punish the focus was primarily on common thoughts and institutions, in The History of
Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge Foucault’s focal point was aimed at the intimate area of
desire and feeling. He started to study sexuality as an effort to treat it ‘as the correlation of a domain of knowledge, a type of normativity and a mode of relation to the self’, and, furthermore, ‘to decipher how, in Western societies, a complex experience is constituted from and around certain forms of behavior’ (Foucault, The Foucault Reader 333).
Foucault argues that sexuality, as the realm of secret and hidden desires, is the place where society’s control penetrated the inner regions of the individual subject (Seigel 619-620). The idea is that since the 18th century (approximately the same period as the rise of disciplinary power) there has been a change in regard to the frankness of sexuality. Sex was expelled from the public sphere and took its entrance in the private
14 domain. This, nevertheless, did not mean that sex was generally repressed. On the contrary, this elimination of sex from the public sphere led, actually, to growing discussion and analysis on sex behind closed doors. The public repression of sexuality forced a constant realization of one’s own sexuality, and brought it, therefore, more to the attention of the modern subject. It became, on the one hand, a matter of confidentiality and quietness, but, on the other hand, also a matter of enduring discussion. Thus, a consequence ‘of modern sexual regulation was an “incitement to discourse” that turned people’s attention to their inner drives and impulses, making sex a key to self-knowledge, and opening to view a previously unexplored world of private pleasures and fantasies’ (Seigel 620). The mechanism is simple; the public repression of sex needed an alternative outlet – a possibility to express one’s desires and deeper feelings – and, for this reason, habits and methods, serving as channels for expression emerged in the form of psychiatry, prostitution and the practice of confession. But, these social authorities, which offer a platform for the expression of inner desires, are in fact not neutral forms concerning the acquisition of knowledge, they are, instead, all practices where power is executed (Bos 219). The expressions, in other words, go through the rigid structures of social and cultural institutions, and therefore through the compelling shaping mechanisms of power (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge 33).
Hence, this emerging of the area of the subcutaneous and, thereby, also the secrecy of sex, is closely related to the rise of something that Foucault described as the confession culture or the confession society. When one was not able to talk about certain things publicly, the practice of confession became all the more important, this led, thus, to the rise of a confession society in which the act of confessing became a central exercise ‘requiring a stricter ritual and promising more decisive effects’ (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge 61). The general idea is that within the act of confessing the truth of our inner existence generated; i.e. confessing generates the truths within ourselves. The confessor, who confides to the priest, admits his or her own wrong-doing (and is therefore not explicitly accused by an authority like the priest). This is, in line with the disciplinary forms of power, another effective way to make sure people behave according to certain norms and laws since the one who confesses imposes power upon himself via the affirmation to a specific correct-wrong spectrum. By admitting to the spiritual judge that one did wrong, the subject creates its own
15 individual range of what is correct and what is wrong. The execution of general power relations is, therefore, not in the hands of the father confessor, but, instead, in the hands of the one who confesses. In the end, the point is that confessing, despite the fact that the confidential character of confiding conceivably suggests a freer utterance, is not a free expression – i.e. free of the operation of power relations. The act of confessing is essentially limiting, the power relations are in particular operative when one ‘opens his hear.’ Foucault describes this cogently in The Will to Knowledge:
The confession is a ritual of discourse in which the speaking subject is also the subject of the statement; it is also a ritual that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence (or virtual presence) of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession, prescribes and appreciates it, and intervenes in order to judge, punish, forgive, console, and reconcile; a ritual in which the truth is corroborated by the obstacles and resistances it has had to surmount in order to be formulated; and finally, a ritual in which the expression alone, independently of its external consequences, produces intrinsic modifications in the person who articulates it: it exonerates, redeems, and purifies him; it unburdens him of his wrongs, liberates him, and promises him salvation. (61-62).
The act of confessing began to spread out to schools, (mental) hospitals, families and other institutions, but also to modern man’s everyday customs. People began to confess about more than only their wrong-doings; also dreams, motivations and deeper desires became the subject of confessions. Penance began to play such an important role in society that people internalized it. The priest was not necessary anymore in order to confess; modern man developed a general obligation to tell who they ‘really are’ independent of the realm of the church. This means, furthermore that, as described above, this regularly confessing modern subject both asserts and contributes to certain power relations by the act of confessing. Discourse, power and knowledge are especially intertwined in the practice of confessing. The way the subject talks about himself – the revelation of its inner truth – is both determined by power relations, and determines, at the same time, ditto power relations. It is especially in the confession where the subcutaneous and the ‘truth’ come to surface; the confession is the area where at the same time power determines what should be considered as true, and where is determined what should be considered as true. The way the subject talks about himself is both dictated by power, but also creates power. Power, in the end, is a set of relations which determines how the individual thinks, talks and acts. Furthermore, ‘in
16 compelling, persuading and inciting subjects to disclose themselves, finer and more intimate regions of personal and interpersonal life come under surveillance and are opened up for expert judgement, and normative evaluation, for classification and correction’ (Rose, Governing the Soul 244). The spreading of confessing throughout society is, therefore, an intensification of surveillance; especially in regard to the more intimate regions. Here, again, it can be seen that power is eminently fragmented. It is not executed from the top, instead, it emerges bottom up; i.e. power emerges from the subjected subjects themselves. This is both the case in disciplinary forms of power but also in regard to the associated forms of power that underline sexuality and confession.
During the same period in time appears something that, according to Foucault, is closely related to the exercise of power on the basis of sexuality, namely the rise of the pursuit of the state to regulate the biological lives of the population on an eminently large-scale; i.e. a collective form of power that Foucault called biopower (Bos 220). Hence, the techniques used in biopower, or biopolitics, focus on the optimization of the state of life of the population, but do this by addressing to the global mass; i.e. the overall population that is affected by long-term processes such as birth, death, illness and so forth. The regulation and management of such processes is what Foucault calls the biopolitics of the human race (Vintges 32). It is, moreover, ‘a technology which brings together the mass effects characteristic of a population, which tries to control the series of random events that can occur in a living mass, a technology which tries to predict the probability of those events (by modifying it, if necessary), or at least to compensate for their effects’ (Foucault, Society Must Be Defended 249).
This form of power emerged because of the rise of a field of knowledge which had the observations and measurements concerning man’s life, death and the continuation of life as an aim. This led to the fact that, ‘for the first time in history, no doubt, biological existence was reflected in political existence; the fact of living was no longer an inaccessible substrate that only emerged from time to time, amid the randomness of death and its fatality; part of it passed into knowledge's field of control and power's sphere of intervention’ (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge 142). Furthermore, Foucault famously stated, that there is a change from the power to make dead and let live (in the sovereign modes of power), to the power of making life and
17 letting die (Society Must Be Defended 247). Instead of the right to kill, power now will be dealing with living beings.
Hence, according to Foucault, the significant elements in regard to biopower are, for one thing, the object of the knowledge which biopolitics addresses. These include ‘processes such as the ratio of births to deaths, the rate of reproduction, the fertility of population, and so on’ (Foucault, Society Must Be Defended 243). These processes form the material that biopower attempts to regulate and control. The second significant element encompasses the fact that the phenomena, which are taken into consideration by biopower, are collective phenomena that have their economic and political effects specifically on a mass level. Hence, these phenomena are unpredictable when taken on an individual level, but possible to grasp when considered from a collective perspective. At last, Foucault states that the emergence of biopolitics introduced other mechanisms of power in relation to disciplinary methods. These new mechanisms of power include, among other things, ‘forecasts, statistical estimates, and overall measures’ (Foucault, Society Must Be Defended 246). And their purpose is to intervene at a general level; the death rate must be lowered, life expectancy increased, birth rate increased and overall ‘regulatory mechanisms must be established to establish an equilibrium, maintain an average, establish a sort of homeostasis, and compensate for variations within this general population and its aleatory field’ (Foucault, Society Must Be Defended 246). It is, in other words, a case of taking control over the biological processes of modern man on a general level.
To summarize, throughout both of these mid-works (Discipline and Punish and
The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge) Foucault makes the same point;
Western culture sought to achieve a stable and coherent self ‘formed wholly through its cultural and social relations, and thus subjected to them at the very juncture where they fostered the illusion of individual autonomy and reflective self-management’ (Seigel 620). Hence, the constitution of the modern subject takes, in other words, place on the basis of an interplay between knowledge and power (Bos 29).
18
Chapter 2: Self-Techniques in the Final-Foucault
Governmentality & Neoliberalism
A concept arising from Foucault’s understanding of biopower is governmentality. The new concept of power involves, in relation to his earlier work, to a much larger extent, a fundament of agency in regard to the subject. Foucault describes governmentality, in a broader sense, as the art of government, which point to a new set of techniques emerged in the eighteenth century. He understands the state, moreover, as a set of techniques, instead of an institution (Vintges 30). The art of government emerged at about the same point in history as the disciplinary and biopower emerged; they are, in fact, closely connected to each other.
Governmentality can best be described as a complete set of techniques that is used to manage the population; the set of techniques ‘exercised’ to govern the social body (Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics 186). From this perspective, the population is the final end government. Although, the end is ‘certainly not just to govern, but to improve the condition of the population, to increase its wealth, its longevity, and its health’ (Foucault, Security, Territory, Population 105). This is an important new dimension that appeared in regard to modern society, modern man’s well-being and doing has become a public matter. But, Foucault argue, it is not the managing of the mass as a whole, abstract entity, as an agglutination of their results, instead, he states that ‘managing the population means managing it in depth, in all its fine points and details’ (Security, Territory, Population 107). The techniques of governmentality are immanent in the population; the actual execution of the governmental power emerges from the population itself. Their conduct is being governed, but it is still their own – through a certain amount of agency determined – conduct. It is, in a way, by means of the population’s agency that the government governs.
Governmentality ‘has become the common ground of all our modern forms of political rationality, insofar as they construe the tasks of rulers in terms of calculated supervision and maximization of the forces of society’ (Rose, Governing the Soul 5). Foucault makes a distinction between liberal governmentality and neoliberal governmentality. Since the corpus, existing out of the phenomenon of the (video) selfie, is inseparably connected to the neoliberal consumerism, I will predominantly focus on the neoliberal governmental regime. In regard to the neoliberal governing rationality,
19 new ways of conceiving the relations between state, society, economy and the population emerge (Brown 50). The most significant difference is that in the domain of the neoliberal governmentality the market will not be left alone by the state. On the contrary, the pure competition, which is the core aspect of the market, can only emerge ‘if it is produced by an active governmentality’ (Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics 121). The government should, with all the available forms of power and management techniques, accompany the market from start to finish, to establish competition in an as
pure as possible form. ‘One must govern the market, rather than because of the market’
(Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics 121). Hence, the neoliberal governmentality is a political regime that manages the population in a far-reaching way, and, moreover, constructs rather than respects the free market (Vintges 32). This means, in the end, that ‘neoliberalism activates the state on behalf of the economy, not to undertake economic functions or to intervene in economic effects, but rather to facilitate economic competition and growth’ and, more important, ‘to economize the social’ and ‘regulate society by the market’ (Brown 62). This determining principle, that the market must ultimately be produced, changes the techniques for the art of government, it changes the style of governmentality. Concerning neoliberal governmentality, the government itself ‘becomes a sort of enterprise whose task it is to universalize competition and invent market-shaped systems of action for individuals, groups and institutions’ (Lemke,
Biopolitics 197).
For Foucault, the most eminent feature of (American) neoliberal governmentality is the creation of the homo oeconomicus. He understands this neoliberal subject as the man of consumption, or even the man as a producer, insofar he produces his own satisfaction; the ‘homo oeconomicus is an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur of himself’ (Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics 226). In this understanding, the homo oeconomicus is, most of all, a calculative agent; ‘a rational actor who calculates costs and benefits, and his whole life accordingly’ (Vintges 33). With this internalized rationality, the homo oeconomicus’ has incorporated the principle of ‘an optimal allocation of scarce resources to alternative ends’ in all its behavior (Foucault, The Birth
of Biopolitics 268). This means that the subject, in all his daily activities, calculates and
plans his conduct in order to achieve maximum ‘fulfillment’ out of life, and sees himself, moreover, as a business that has to be governed. Moreover, ‘individuals are to become,
20 as it were, entrepreneurs of themselves, shaping their own lives through the choices they make among the forms of life available to them’ (Rose, Governing the Soul 230).
In the end, neoliberalism ‘comes down to an active and extensive restructuring’ of both the ‘self and society’ (Vintges 34). Both the subject and the government become an enterprise; an enterprise that has to be governed to all its fine point and details, with as a goal to reach an optimally functioning government and the corresponding most favorable subjects. The neoliberal idea is, therefore, not consciously executed by the government on its population; instead, the overall neoliberal idea is imposed on all aspects of society – also the government and its population – which all strengthen each other with, as a final result, a complete neoliberal, social reality (Lemke, ‘The Birth of
Biopolitics’ 203).
The means, by which the neoliberal subject is governed to act as an apparent ‘free’ entrepreneur, is explained, by the authors from the ‘governmentality school’, on the basis of a concept that Foucault introduced two years after he presented his ideas on governmentality; i.e. on the basis of the notion of ‘self-techniques’ (Vintges 35-36). Foucault develops this idea of self-techniques through, what he describes as, the genealogy of the modern subject. That is to say, the study of ‘the constitution of the subject across history which has led us up to the modern concept of the self’ (Foucault, Subjectivity and Truth 150). These techniques can be found in all societies and basically ‘permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection or immortality’ (Foucault, Technologies of the Self 18). Hence, these techniques offer a ‘minimal freedom’ which is important for the notion of governmentality; it forms the ground on which the conducting of people’s conduct takes place (Vintges 36). An important point, added by Foucault, is that these techniques of the self always exist besides the above-mentioned disciplinary techniques – the power of normalization. The governing of people is always ‘a versatile equilibrium, with complementarity and conflicts between techniques which impose coercion and processes through which the self is constructed or modified by himself’, people are, moreover, governed on the basis of ‘a subtle integration of coercion-technologies and self-technologies’ (Foucault, Subjectivity and Truth 154-155).
21 the self are, in modern society, eminently determined by neoliberal governmentality. They use Foucault’s concept of self-technologies to clarify and explain modern forms of power. According to these authors, the ‘minimal freedom’, present in the self-techniques, offers, by consulting the agency of the subject, the possibility for a relatively free form of self-formation. And it is exactly this relatively free endeavor of self-creation which is a principle condition for the creation of the subject as an entrepreneur; on the basis of this agency the neoliberal subject is able to govern their success in life. It is important to state that this relative freedom of the subject is both created and limited by neoliberal governmentality; it exists by virtue of the neoliberal governmental regime. This means that ‘the self is not merely enabled to choose, but obliged to construe a life in terms of its choices, its powers and its values’ (Rose, Governing the Soul 231). In line with this, Miller and Rose state that the idea of ‘individual freedom, personal choice and self-fulfillment’ is the fundament of today’s advanced governmentality, and are, therefore, the foundation of programs of modern governments (48). The power of a certain political program is not solely based on domination. Instead, political power has come to depend upon a web of technologies for fabricating and maintaining self-government’ these programs of government can, moreover, ‘utilize and rely upon a complex net of technologies - in management, in marketing, in advertising, in instructional talks on the mass media of communication - for educating citizens in techniques for governing themselves’ (Miller and Rose 52).
Ethics and Care of the Self
Now, in Foucault’s last phase – mainly consisting of his lectures at Collège de France, and the last two volumes of The History of Sexuality; respectively The Use of Pleasure (1986) and The Care of the Self (1986) – he no longer focuses on Western modernity ‘but on Greco-Roman Antiquity’, furthermore, ‘it is no longer a political reading in terms of power apparatuses, but an ethical reading in terms of practices of the self’ (Gross 508). In this final phase, as stated above, Foucault changes his focal point towards the study of relative free forms of Ancient ethical self-development. But, this new focus does not necessarily mean that he dropped his political aim, instead, he began this project in pursuance of the deepening of his governmentality studies (Gross 512). The above described neoliberal self-techniques, ‘did not appear clearly to Foucault so long as he
22 was studying the problematization of the subject in the modern west’, he, therefore, had to move his focus towards these Ancient societies in order to find the above described ground of agency which is essential for neoliberal governmentality (Gross 513). That is to say, Foucault thought to have found a clear form of agency in regard to the pre-modern ideas of the ‘practices of the self’ and the closely related ‘care of the self’. These ideas, developed out of studies concerning ethics in Ancient societies, move, in comparison to the neoliberal self-techniques, relatively independent of their social and cultural surroundings; with this, Foucault thought to have found ‘an opening beyond the
assujettissement’, and, moreover, ‘the existence of modes of pursuing subjective
autonomy that did not serve as instruments of subjection’ (Seigel 622). With this new project, Foucault eventually provides ‘another concept of politics, contra top down political programs and social engineering: a bottom up way of practicing politics that not only involves micro-aims, but meso- and macro-aims as well’ (Vintges 39).
Hence, regarding his new project Foucault started to study the Ancient and Stoic ethics, and, moreover, compare these practices with the ethical forms emerged during Christian times. Although he started to work on ethics, this work does not encompass the topics that are commonly taken under the denominator of ethics, i.e. the study of morals. That is to say, Foucault was not interested in the moral values or principles themselves, but, instead, he focused on another dimension of ethics; the ethical relation to oneself – something he also described as the care of the self. Foucault distinguishes three elements that constitute ethics; acts, moral codes and the ethical relation to oneself. The acts, for one thing, consist of the behavior of people, on which the ethical incentive is imposed. Furthermore, the moral codes are the prescriptive rules that state which act is permitted and which act is forbidden. At last, the third dimension – the dimension where Foucault distinguishes himself from other ethicists, and, more important, the reason why he started to study ethics – includes the ethical relation to oneself. This ethical relation to oneself – or care of the self – is ‘the kind of relationship you ought to have with yourself’, Foucault describes this as ethics because this relation ‘determines how the individual is supposed to constitute himself as a moral subject of his own actions’ (Foucault, Ethic: Subjectivity and Truth 263).
Now this care of the self consists, according to Foucault, of four main elements. The first is ethical substance; this centers around the ‘what’ question, what ‘is the aspect
23 or the part of myself or my behavior which is concerned with moral conduct’ (Foucault,
Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth 263)? This is basically the prime material that is being
considered by doing ethics, the things which are for instance morally exceptional or disgraceful, for example intentions or acts, either good or bad. Additionally, the second element contains the mode of subjection, this part centers around the ‘on behalf of what question’? That is to say, this aspect establishes the subject’s relation to the ethical rule or moral code; i.e. the decisive reason for something to be either morally good or morally bad – for instance, on the basis of religious believes or on behalf of rationality. Furthermore, the third part consists of the self-forming activity, this element focuses on the ‘how’-question; what are the means or the techniques by which we can ‘change ourselves in order to become ethical subjects’ (Foucault, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth 265)? How should one remodel or change him or herself in order to become a morally worthy subject? At last, the fourth element is what Foucault calls the telos, the telos moves around the question ‘to what end’? What are we trying to be – or trying to become – with this specific ethical behavior? What is, ultimately, the goal of this care of the self? The complete mastery of the self could be an example of such a goal.
Now, this ethical self-formation is, according to Foucault, something that can be found in all – in some more than others – cultures. But he, in fact, specifically started to study Ancient Greek society because this practice of the ‘care of the self’ had the upper hand in this period (Vintges 40). During this time ethics were a personal or aesthetic choice, the motive was to create a beautiful self, and there was no intention to set norms for others. Foucault understood this care of the self as some sort of ‘art of existence’; ‘those intentional and voluntary actions by which men not only set themselves rules of conduct, but also seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria’ (The Use of Pleasure 10-11). Hence, the idea is that art is not something that is necessarily related to an object, but also something that can be connected to a subject; to a life. But, this ethical relation to oneself is, in fact, no solipsistic activity (Gross 538). Instead, the care of the self involves, eminently, also caring for others. That self ‘the subject discovered in the care of the self is quite the opposite of an isolated individual: he is a citizen of the world’ (Vintges 41). Moreover, ‘the care of the self enables one to occupy his rightful position in the city, the
24 community, or interpersonal relationships’ (Foucault, The Ethics of the Concern for Self
as a Practice of Freedom 287). This means, furthermore, that the taking care of oneself
was an important practice that provided the population of Ancient Greece with the required properties for them to act as political citizens.
So, according to Foucault, pre-Christian types of ethics are characterized by a rather large measure of the dimension of the care of the self. In regard to this ethical self-creation, a relatively substantial amount of agency is the case concerning the shaping of the self. That is to say, the subject can, to a certain extent, be moved freely, independent of social structures and moral codes, to constitute their own moral values. Hence, ‘the accent is place on the relationship with the self and on the exercises and self-techniques that enable one to develop an ethos’; i.e. ‘a personal ethical way of life’ (Vintges 40). Foucault’s pre-Christian image of care of the self provided therefore, ‘a selfhood formed through its own reflective relation to itself, a self that achieves its special mode of “care” wholly by way of reflectivity’, the important part, moreover, is ‘that social values and pressures had no power to intrude into the reflection this self directed toward itself’ (Seigel 626). In the end, ‘Foucault was especially interested in the ‘relatively independent’ status of the ancient practices of the self, which to him formed an alternative to the self-techniques of modern man that are linked to coercive power regimes’ (Vintges 43).
But, Foucault argues, the construction of this ethical practice changes throughout time. In, for instance, Christian times a shift concerning the care of the self was the case; during this time ‘some precepts emerge that seem to be rather similar to those that will be formulated in the later moral systems’, and this leads, moreover, to ‘a mode of subjection in the form of obedience to a general law that is at the same time the will of a personal god; a type of work on oneself that implies a decipherment of the soul and a purificatory hermeneutics of the desires; and a mode of ethical fulfillment that tends toward self-renunciation’ (Foucault, The Care of the Self 239-240). This means that, in Christian times, people were, to a larger extent, inclined to live according to certain moral rules and principles.
With Christianity, there occurred a slow, gradual shift in relation to the moralities of Antiquity, which were essentially a practice, a style of liberty. Of course, there had also been certain norms of behavior that governed each individual's behavior. But the will to
25 be a moral subject and the search for an ethics of existence were, in Antiquity, mainly an attempt to affirm one's liberty and to give to one's own life a certain form in which one could recognize oneself, be recognized by others, and which even posterity might take as an example. This elaboration of one's own life as a personal work of art, even if it obeyed certain collective canons, was at the center, it seems to me, of moral experience, of the will to morality in Antiquity, whereas in Christianity, with the religion of the text, the idea of the will of God, the principle of obedience, morality took on increasingly the form of a code of rules (only certain ascetic practices were more bound up with the exercise of personal liberty). From Antiquity to Christianity, we pass from a morality that was essentially the search for a personal ethics to a morality as obedience to a system of rules. And if I was interested in Antiquity it was because, for a whole series of reasons, the idea of a morality as obedience to a code of rules is now disappearing, has already disappeared. And to this absence of morality corresponds, must correspond, the search for an aesthetics of existence. (Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture 49).
So, the change went from the techne tou biou (aesthetics of existence or the art of life) to a techne (technology) of the self (Foucault, The Foucault Reader 348). Ethics became more private, it was ‘to be exercised on the basis of the individual’s “retreat within himself”; that is, it depended on the relationship he established with himself in the ethical work of the self on the self’ (Foucault, Care of the Self 91). Foucault argues, moreover, that the care of the self, found in Ancient Greece, slowly ‘lost some of their importance and autonomy when they were assimilated into the exercise of priestly power in early Christianity, and later, into educative, medical and psychological types of practices’ (Foucault, The Use of Pleasure 11).
Now, by studying this notion of the care of the self, Foucault found the necessary elements of agency in order to be able to indicate and elucidate the later emerged (neoliberal) governmentality techniques. Foucault’s historical perspective was, in the end, a means to expose certain elements concerning the modern constitution of the subject which, in its turn, serves as an instrument for the execution of power in modern societies.
Relation between different phases of Foucault’s work
At the end of his career, Foucault stated that his work eminently focused on the answering of the following questions: “How are we constituted as subjects of our own knowledge? How are we constituted as subjects who exercise or submit to power
26 relations? How are we constituted as moral subjects of our own actions?” (Foucault, The
Foucault Reader 49). Summarized, his work focused on three broad areas, namely the
‘relations of control over things, relations of action upon others,’ and, the ‘relations with oneself’ (Foucault, The Foucault Reader 49). It is, moreover, the relationship between these three areas – power, truth and ethics – that ‘determines the conditions of possibility and limits of subjectivity’ (Simons 30).
In the first chapter was described how, according to Foucault, the modern western subject is subjected (assujettissement) and formed through various power practices. The disciplinary forms of power produce the ‘normal’ individual by means of exhaustive surveillance and control; the individuals within society are molded in order to behave as ‘normal human beings’. Furthermore, Foucault’s study on sexuality, in a similar manner, showed how the framework of social and cultural institutions are inseparably connected to the compelling mechanisms of power. In the end, Foucault’s mid-work presented convincingly how power is eminently fragmented. Instead of a sovereign authority who executes power from the top, power, according to Foucault, emerges from the bottom of society through the channel of the population.
In relation to these limited powers of subjection, Foucault, in his later phase, considered somewhat less restricted power practices in the form of the governmentality techniques. In order to fully elucidate the workings of these governmental forms of power in modern society, he required the potential of agency in regard to the subject. In his search for agency Foucault drew upon Ancient ethics, in these pre-modern societies he found the notions ‘the care of the self’ and the ‘technologies of the self’; an understanding of the self where the subject is ‘constituted not through physical being or social relations, but by virtue of an individual’s self-defined attitudes toward the world’ (Seigel 606). From these Ancient notions of self-technologies, he was able to explore modern governmental practices. That is to say, according to Foucault and the authors of the governmentality school, the governing of the self – the technologies of the self – is, in modern society, overdetermined by neoliberal governmentality. This means, in other words, that the way the modern subject determines himself – with this relative substantial amount of agency – is, in fact, dictated by neoliberal governmental techniques. The ubiquitous presence of a discourse concerning individual choice and self-cultivation, that predicates the political scope of modern neoliberal societies, is,
27 according to Foucault, based on the potential to endeavor in the practice of self-techniques. Overall, the architecture of the modern subject is, to a large extent, based on a variety of techniques constituted by social practices ‘seeking to promote personal fulfillment, improved productivity and increased social welfare’ (Miller and Rose 8). These forms of power are spread throughout several domains of society, and will, thereby, also go ‘beyond the state’ and spill over into, for instance, digital practices (Miller and Rose 10).
In the end, modern Western society epitomizes a complicated mix of individualization techniques, normalization structures, collective regulating practices and self-techniques. The next step is to examine this on the basis of the modern, digital selfie-culture.
28
Chapter 3: The (Video) Selfie
Before I continue with the overview of the academic debate concerning the (video) selfie, it is important to articulate the various stages and places for meaning-making and distinctive experiences in regard to the (video) selfie that can shape the subject. The different stages can be distinguished by ‘1 the inspiration to take the selfie, 2 the preparation to take the selfie, 3 the arrangement and composition of the selfie, 4 the taking of the selfie, 5 the reviewing, editing, deleting and saving of selfies; and, 6 what is done with a selfie at the end (posting or other)’ (Warfield 3). This abstract of the different phases concerning the (video) selfie is useful to fall back on during the analysis, and shows, moreover, that this practice of taking a photo or video of oneself is, in itself, already a rather complex and extensive endeavor.
Although the activities conducted in these divergent stages may seem like a product of hypermodern digital technologies in particular, they can, in fact, be traced back to usage in older mediums. Before the introduction of the selfie camera, things like a mirror, a self-portrait, a camera and, not to forget, a stage or even a billboard where one can present oneself, existed for a long time. In a way, the selfie camera combines these different practices and performances and transforms them into one comprehensive and easy to use technique. These different aspects of the (video) selfie ask, obviously, for different approaches. The question is, therefore, which approach suits this particular research best? At first sight, it may seem like a good idea to take the mirror aspect of the selfie into account since this phenomenon has been extensively examined within (Lacanian) psychoanalytic theory, and this field of study, moreover, fits well with the scope that I want to investigate, namely, how the (video) selfie affects the modern subject (Warfield 1). But, when this direction is taken, it is likely that the collective, societal and political dimension of self-shaping tends to be forgotten. And it is especially this social dimension of the (video) selfie where I am – in line with Foucault – particularly interested. For this reason, I will, in this research, focus on the transformation and constitution of the modern subject by means of the (video) selfie as entrenched within social domain. Therefore, first and foremost, I will study the (video) selfie from a social philosophical perspective.
29 Outline of Academic Debate
Before going on, it is necessary to give a short overview of the different academic studies and corresponding results with reference to the practice of taking (video) selfies and its impact on the subject of the selfie-taker. In their article ‘From Liberation to Control: Understanding the Selfie Practice’, Kedzior and Allen see a trend within the academic field of ‘two conflicting perspectives on the impact of selfies: the selfie experience as a source of empowerment and the selfie as embodiment of societal control and expression of existing power-relations’ (1893). The perspective concerning the empowerment of the selfie ‘is premised on the assumption that digital self-portraiture is an act of self-revelation, which in combination with the possibility of online publication democratizes access for individuals to the visual mediascape’, and the selfie, thereby, ‘empowers the posters and gives them control over the way in which they are represented’ (Kedzior and Allen 1895). Nemer and Freeman, in their study on a possible empowering potential of the (video) selfie in Brazilian slums, state that ‘selfies, rather, empower the users to exercise free speech, practice self-reflection, express spiritual purity, improve literacy skills, and form strong interpersonal connections’ (1833). The empowering potential arises from the new possibilities which became available by means of the (video) selfie in favor of the marginalized group of people living in the financially, technologically and infrastructure-wise subordinate slum. These forms of empowerment, in regard to the slum inhabitants, will, in practice, take the shape of the escaping of the powerful eyes of a drug lord by showing their dissatisfaction by means of taking (video) selfies (Nemer and Freeman 1843). This may be an example of empowerment in a more practical sense, but it does, in fact, not touch upon the same fundamentals of self-constitution as I am looking for in this research; i.e. the relation between self-constitution, the social environment and power on a more in-depth level. These forms of selfie-empowerment, in other words, do not establish empowerment in the form of a critical self-relation in a similar manner as Foucault found in Ancient cultures with the notion of the care of the self.
Tiidenberg and Cruz, on the other hand, do study this empowering perspective of the (video) selfie from the angle of Foucault’s ideas on critical self-care in their article ‘Selfies, Image and Re-making of the Body’. They state that ‘taking and sharing body-selfies – if critically self-aware and self-care led – can be conducive to positive
30 becomings of bodies’ (Tiidenberg and Cruz 95). An example of this ‘positive becoming of bodies’ can, according to Tiidenberg and Cruz, be found in an 41-year-old mother who feels empowered when she takes and shares stimulating and sexy (video) selfies (90). The idea is that she takes control over the way she is perceived, both by herself and by others; she determines her role in the image, independent of social expectations. Although Tiidenberg and Cruz specifically use Foucault’s ideas in their study, the question if the above is an example of a legitimate case of Foucault’s critical self-care. They base their arguments on interviews with women who state that they feel, in one way or another, empowered by taking these (video) selfies where they can present themselves in a way that (think) they ‘want’. But this feeling of empowerment nonetheless seems to emerge within the ruling structure of power relations instead of escaping these relations; this feeling of empowerment occurs, in the end, to be determined controlled by the structures of modern society. That is to say, the selfie-takers do not escape or overcome power because they are, in fact, still attached to the common norms concerning femininity, sexuality and age. It is, in other words, not an essentially free form of self-shaping when one is still adhering to the overall norms of society. For this reason, I will disregard this empowering-centered line of reasoning in my analysis since it seems to skip the framework of societal power relations.
The other main perspective that Kedzior and Allen recognize in regard to the academic studies on the (video) selfie-practice is the perspective of ‘the selfie as embodiment of societal control and expression of existing power-relations’ (1893). Schwarz, in his article ‘On Friendship, Boobs and the Logic of the Catalogue’, counters the empowerment perspective and states that the general phenomenon of the (video) selfie ‘rather than an expression of a reflexively chosen identity’, is for a large part determined by social expectations and therefore not at all a case freedom or autonomy (163). In line with Schwarz’ argument, Barnard states, in his article ‘Spectacles of Self(ie) Empowerment?’, that the taking control, or the amount of agency, is limited to the operation of the camera and choices in regard to the sharing of the images (64). He states, moreover, that this freedom concerning the operation of the camera is not essentially free if the subject is still forced to adhere to the dominant visual discourse.
