9. Governmentality: Care as Control

  Welcome to Week 9 of Transforming Lives through Care. =

In previous weeks, we saw how care can be analysed in terms of concepts such as capital and kinship. We looked at care violent coercion. Now we are going to anlayse care in terms of governmentality. The basic idea is that systems designed for care actually create greater control over the population. This is not overtly violent, according to Foucault, but it is more effective.

🎯 Learning Goals

By the end of this week, you should be able to:

• explain the idea of governmentality
• use governmentality to analyse caring practices 
• critique the idea of governmentality

🚦 Introduction

Governmentality is a mentality. Most people are unaware that they have this mentality. Although this mentality has only emerged in Europe's modern period, it seems to us to normal and natural. We think that governments should help people live long and happy lives. To achieve this we expect governments not to control us but to take care  for of us. We, in turn, make ourselves governable by shaping our behaviours, desires, and choices in ways that align with what governments define as good, healthy, or responsible. This governmentality occurs through subtle techniques like public health campaigns, education, statistics, and expert advice. 

📘 Essential Materials

Read M. Foucault, 1991. Governmentality. In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. G. Burchell, et al., eds. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Read pp. 101-104. Foucault’s concept of governmentality helps us see how modern governments “care” for citizens through subtle tools—like health campaigns, statistics, and expert advice—that shape how we live, work, and think.

Watch my presentation on Governmentality:

 

 Lisa Stevenson, “Facts and images” in  Life Beside Itself . Read only pp. 20-35 not whole chapter. Unlike Foucault, Stevenson is an anthropologist. She did fieldwork in Nunavut, Canada's far north. During the mid-20th century, the Canadian government launched an intensive campaign to combat tuberculosis among Inuit, evacuating thousands to southern hospitals. Though framed as humanitarian care, these actions often ignored Inuit needs, consent, and kinship ties. Stevenson’s work explores how such biopolitical care—care aimed at managing life itself—can feel indifferent, even violent, especially in colonial contexts.

Watch my presentation which brings together Foucault's ideas with the Stevenson reading:

📚 Recommended Materials

I have attempted the impossible Foucault in 500 words (or less)--to briefly summarise how governmentality fits in to Foucault's larger thought. 

You've read pp. 101-104 of Governmentality. If you want a summary of the Foucault's whole chapter, see my blog, Foucault, "Governmentality" . 

Having difficulty with Foucault's "Governmentality"? Go to this video to read along with me as I make sense of pp. 101-104

Read my selected passages from Stevenson, Life Beside Itself. 

🗣️ Interactive tasks

How do you rate your understanding of governmentality? Test yourself with this quiz.

Complete Worksheet 10: Governmentality & Care. This will help you develop skills in recognising, applying, and critiquing the "governmentality" concept.

Ask yourself: When does care stop being empowering—and start being a way to govern life itself?Stevenson applies this idea to Inuit communities in northern Canada, where tuberculosis care efforts disrupted kinship, ignored consent, and turned care into something cold, distant, and even harmful. 

🏁 Conclusion

Summary

Governmentality is a concept which, Foucault thinks, can be used to understand how governments care of people. Most scholars interpret Foucault's governmentality as a process by which governments exert control over citizens by caring over them. But I think it is equally a process in which we empower governments to enable us to live long, healthy, lives by making ourselves governable.

Significance

Foucault's theories have been perhaps the most influential in the social sciences and humanities over the past 50 years. And at the centre of his theories lies the concept of "governmentality". But that does not mean it is useful in understanding caring for people. It's up to you to understand "governmentality" and decide whether sheds light on human practices of care.

What's next

Next we look at neoliberalism, a more recent development which might have altered or even replaced governmentality.

🔎 Further Research

Visit websites which explain governmentality.  Philosophies of Life presents a overview of governmentality and as a bonus discusses "neoliberalism". CLT also provides a useful summary in Govermentality: Notes on the thought of Michel Foucault.

Watch the Chomsky vs Foucault debate on YouTube. Chomsky has an orthodox idea of power and, despite being one of the great philosophers of the 1900s, does not seem to understand Foucault's point.

Check out my blog "Controlling Bodies and Minds" for more on Foucault's ideas of biopolitics and panopticon. 

Read the whole Introductory chapter of Life Beside Itself Lisa Stevenson,⚠️ Trigger Warning

 includes discussion of suicide, domestic violence, and other disturbing themes, and might be particularly disturbing for Indigenous students. I'm not going to lie...it's a really tough reading. If you proceed, please take care while reading. If you find the content distressing, consider pausing and seeking support by accessing student wellbeing services for help. But take it from me...I wish I hadn't read it.