Topic: institutional gaze and disciplining subjects

Order Description

Michael Foucault: The Institutional Gaze and discipline subjects
Detailed Instructions & Steps
1.    Choose an institution & Norm- Case study €“ specific example
a. Choose an institution or corporation (e.g. rehab program or center), column in a magazine or newspaper, self- help book or manual, etiquette manual (contemporary or historical) that aims to discipline (improve, reform or correct) individual subjects (for example, a health care clinic, social welfare program, management training program, fitness program, high school, dieting column in a woman’s or men’s magazine, anger self-help book, sports club, etc.)
b. Include an evidence of your case with your assignment. For example, if you are focusing on a rehab institution, hand in a printout of its website’s home page relevant to the assignment. Or if your case study is on a self-help book, photocopy sections in the book that are relevant
c. Describe the norms that the institution, corporation or program (i) use to judge subjects as inadequate or deviant and then subsequently, (ii) trains them to conform to them.
2. Institutional gaze: surveillance and judgment
a. describe how deviant or imperfect subjects are identified
1. by reports or examinations produced by authorities in institutions or corporations (Tagg, Foucault, Bordo) or
2. do the subjects self-regulate (Sturken & cartwright; Foucault; Bordo): are they trained to identify themselves as abnormal, deviant or imperfect
b. what evidence is collected about the individual to determine their normality/abnormality
3. discipline: reforming abnormal, deviant or imperfect subjects
a. describe the disciplinary method (Tagg 76, 89; Foucalt; Bordo): the practices, procedures and/or products prescribed to reform or improve the subject so they conform to norms
b. is there an authority that has developed the practices, procedures and/or products (experts? Expert knowledge?)
c. how are the practices, procedures, and/or products administered (e.g. with a manual or instructions that the subjects follows regularly or/and under the supervision of an expert?)
4. Made visible: turned into a case to be monitored
a. is the subject’s initial condition and progress recorded in a file kept in a database that is regularly updated and assessed( Tagg, 74)? Or has she or he internalized self-regulation, constantly comparing her or himself to norms presented in the media? (Bordo)
b. if the subject is successfully disciplined, what does she or he need to do to maintain her or his improved reformed state?
4. power relations: disciplines that produce docile bodies
a. what are the values associated with the norm? (e.g. good citizen vs. bad citizen? Leader vs. follower? Masculine and power vs. female and submissive? Good homemaker vs. selfish woman and careerist? Slim, hard working, and in control vs, fat, lazy and out of control? Popular and technologically up-to-date vs. unpopular and technologically illiterate? etc.)
b. how are these norms ideological? (reinforce dominant systems)
c. can you conclude you’ve identified the disciplinary gaze and the procedures through which subjects are trained to conform to norms? Is power here visible or invisible? Or both? Explain your answer: how is power visible/invisible?

Must use following articles for the assignment and quote
Tagg, J
A means of surveillance
Bordo, Susan
Selections from the body and reproduction of feminity and reading the slender body
Foucalt, M
The means of correct training & Panopticism
Cartwright, L., Sturken, M..
Viewers make meaning
Sturken, M Cartwright, L
Spectatorship