Knowledge is BioPower

In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating- Michel Foucault

I work in an environment, rife for sociological analysis, but in order to really enjoy my job--which I do for the most part--I have sort of had to put my tendency to critically analyze everything to bed, at least some of the time. But here we are in the full swing of flu shot campaign season and I am feeling a lot  of pressure and a growing ball of rage. Emails are being sent from the ether (some operational director, or PR person) with updates to immunization policy, reminders to get our  shots and to make sure our managers get a record of immunization, or to see our bosses one on one to explain why we are not getting immunized. In these emails we are reminded that getting the shot is "not just something we must do, that it is the right thing to do." I have to wonder right for whom? And to pose the question: what about my rights? 

The campaign at my work portrays a heavy handed guideline or suggestion what really is an order. There are pretty coercive penalties built in that make it very difficult for one to stick to their principles and beliefs. First of all, if you do not comply you will be subject to public shaming as you will be forced to wear a mask throughout the entire flu season as well as a badge that states "I care, I wear as mask," fascism with a friendly face. Secondly, if there is an outbreak of the flu they really hit below the belt: you will be sent home for the duration of the epidemic with no pay or access to sick days. When I went to my manager for that one on one meeting to tell him I do not want to shoot mercury, formaldehyde and other dubious substances into my body or to buy into big pharma-fear mongering, he sort of smiled and said "I don't call the shots [no pun intended], direct your advocacy to them."

Yes "them" that faceless, abstract entity known as the Coastal Health Authority, the main funders of the organization I work for. But even nurses in this province (legitimate health care professionals, unlike myself) are trying to fight the flu shot policy, but to no avail. Last year, I buckled from the pressure and got my first flu vaccine ever, almost hating myself for letting policy dictate what I put into my body so explicitly against my will. Thankfully it is a tendency of mine, when shit really gets to be too much to turn my anger outward and latch on to social theory. This bs has got me thinking about power again.

Healthy Mind, Docile Body: Bio-Power:

According to Michel Foucault, a key thinker of the 20th century who probably influenced me more than anyone including my own mother (except maybe for Marx!), power is everywhere. It circulates through the institutions that organize our lives, it conditions our experiences through forms of knowledge that constitute and validate a "consensual" reality, it resides within the language that we use and governs how we use it. Power is research, documentation, dissemination, conversation: it is embedded in everything that we do.

We are not simply oppressed by power, we are also vehicles of power who not only regulate ourselves through the internalization of specific ideas and norms, but regulate others. Just look at the guilt mongering that goes along with the flu shot campaign. I have had a certain number of people tell me to just get the shot, that I work with vulnerable people, that it doesn't matter if I am healthy I could be a CARRIER (a vector of disease). You see, power functions in a way that upholds the individual. Through interventions we are pushed to "take responsibility, " to better ourselves while seldom looking at the bigger picture. For example, throughout this push-to-immunize, nobody is really asking why are the people we work with so vulnerable (i.e. sub par living conditions and a political economic system that upholds inequity).

In this era, a key means through which we are regulated (and regulate) is through the internalization of ideas of health (the epidemic kills!), the seldom unquestioned notion of scientific truth (everyone does it and its proven to help!), and the subtle and not so subtle penalties we are subjected to when we try to question or go against what are considered health givens. Yes science is our religion! And this ideology penetrates our very being through a vast array of interventions. This health-conscious matrix of control is what Foucault calls Biopower.

Just Another Day at the Office: 

Working in a mental health facility it is no surprise that biopower prevails and that it is not just the clients that are affected. Occupying a space that is such an extreme example of the mechanism of power (Foucault wrote A LOT on psychiatry), it is easy to forget that consumers of the psychiatric system are not the only ones embedded in the matrix of power. Each day I witness (and am part of) an extreme means with which biopower is exercised on people from the inside out, day in day out.

We are part of a regulatory network that involves the mental health team, the hospital, forensic psychiatric services (a hybrid between judicial and health authorities) and the police—connected satellites that function to enforce behaviour that fits certain very well established norms. We share individuals across our specific nexuses: though the same individual could be referred to as a criminal, a patient, or as a client by their first name, they are embedded in a particular system. For example, if one of our clients is late for his monthly shot, we receive a call from the mental health team and are to keep him occupied (and unaware of the imminent intervention) until someone comes down to administer his meds.

If our client has missed quite a few shots and is on a rampage of bad behaviour throughout the neighbourhood, the forces really come crashing down and shit gets real as often the police are on high alert with quite a few agencies likely having witnessed behaviour that does not fit his documented and observed "baseline." Often those in the mental health system have extensive "deviance careers" and their cycles are well known. Phone calls are made, sightings are reported. If we come across the individual we call car 87 (the police force that deals specifically with mental health) and they come down to assess and certify the problematic person. Often, two months later this individual will return a docile, compliant body from the ether, “stabilized” after a stint in the hospital, or at the very least fattened up, after a stint in jail (in this climate of funding cuts to legitimate mental health facilities, jail often works as a makeshift asylum and “mental illness” is increasingly criminalized.)

The old adage knowledge is power is central to Foucault’s conceptualization. A key means through which power functions is through the establishment and documentation of norms that are supported by diverse forms of knowledge (what Foucault referred to the disciplines, a nice double entendre). When it comes to biopower, codified conceptions of normal versus abnormal, sickness versus health, exhibiting symptoms versus asymptomatic, compliant versus non-compliant are central to the effective regulating of bodies, not to mention the network of educated professionals to re-enforce these.

As I have tried to show with both an extreme and an everyday example (or one dealing with the “abnormal” and one dealing with “respectable, functioning” folks,) biopower does not only regulate those that obviously clash with established norms, such as those deemed mentally ill. Think of the latest self-help book or diet trend, shows on television like Dr. Phil, campaigns to get young women vaccinated against HPV, the Canada Food Guide (are you drinking your 3 servings of dairy a day?), the push to compost, recycle and consume organic produce even. Think of the extent that words like safety, risk, prevention, responsibility continuously circulate in our social world. Think to what effect. 

I guess I don't care, that I am a non-compliant vector of disease. But the infuriating thing is that I will probably end up getting the damn shot again this year, completely against my will.