Yet, a different picture emerges in Foucault’s substantive works. In Discipline and Punish
(DP, 1995) Foucault describes the ascendancy of Panopticism and its normalizing results in a manner
that dismisses any notion of resistance. He writes,
This enclosed space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are inserted in a fixed
place, in which the slightest movement are supervised, in which all events are recorded, in which
an uninterrupted work of writing links the centre and periphery, in which power is exercised
without division, according to a continuous hierarchal figure, in which each individual is
constantly located, examined and distributed among living beings, the sick and the dead – all this
constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary society (DP,1995: 197).
Under the omnipotent gaze of the Panopticon and the disciplinary society, resistance appears as not
only futile, but to a large extent, non-existent. The individual has no recourse but to conform. A
similar picture emerges in The History of Sexuality (HS, 1990). Indeed, in an interview Foucault later
claimed (much to the dismay of Left radicals), “I think that to imagine another system is to extend our
participation in the present system” (Foucault, 1993:230). Where has the understanding of resistance
established in his analytics of power disappeared to ?If Foucault’s analytics of power calls to mind the
analogy to war, his actual research projects conjure up an image more akin to genocide. What is the
origin of this disjoint over the place of resistance? Can the conflicting metaphors of war and the
Panopticon be resolved? For the politically anxious leftist, looking for some sort of political program
from Foucault’s work, this contradiction begs a solution. For the social scientist, seeking an adequate
understanding of power, it emerges as a glaring oversight in one of the century’s most brilliant minds.
While Foucault’s projects as defined in DP, HS, and The Order of Things (OT, 1994a) do not require
him to delve deeply into the concept of resistance, his analytics of power, by affording resistance a
prominent role, makes his neglect of this topic in these studies are the more puzzling and entreats
more analysis.
This paper seeks to trace the origin of this disjoint, to understand why Foucault’s work
conveys an image of the Panopticon and ubiquitous repression, while his analytics of power offers an
image of war and omnipresent struggle. This contradiction originates in Foucault’s methodology, both
archaeology and genealogy. Although Foucault’s analytics of power is not averse to resistance, his
methodology obscures it and prevents an understanding of its emergence. Archaeology, by examining
Convention