Social Selves: Theorising the Self, Foucault, and Changing Times

Overview

• Last lecture focused on Globalisation; learned about its multiple dimensions (economic, political, cultural) and how theorists describe globalisation using concepts like the risk society, liquid modernity, and detraditionalization.
• Today’s focus shifts from macro to micro: the individual and everyday life.
• Core debate revisited: the structure/agency (and self-society) relationship; aim to move beyond a simple binary.
• Topics for today:
  • 1) Theorising the Self
  • 2) Foucault: Power, bodies, technology
  • 3) The Self and Society in Changing Times

Part 1: Theorising the Self

NATURE VERSUS NURTURE; GENETICS

• Genetics can reveal ancestry and health outcomes; linked to diseases such as certain cancers, diabetes, and heart disease. Environmental and social factors also contribute to disease outcomes. Importantly: genetics do not determine life outcomes.
• Epigenetics is the study of how behaviors and environments can change the way genes work.
  • Our genetics can be affected by environmental conditions and lifestyle choices of our parents and grandparents.
  • Stressful situations (famines, sickness, trauma) may leave genetic markers through descent.
  • Such effects can be inherited but are not deterministic and can be reversible.

TWIN STUDIES

• Twin studies show we are not born as a ‘blank slate’; genetic and social factors both shape us.
• Example: If one identical twin has schizophrenia, there is a $P( ext{other twin has schizophrenia}) = 0.45$ (i.e., 45%).
• This implies that $P_{ ext{non-genetic}} = 1 - 0.45 = 0.55$ (55%) originates from social/environmental factors.
• Conclusion: Both genetic inheritance and social environment are involved; each twin experiences a unique environment that shapes their life trajectory beyond their genetic makeup.

THEORIZING THE SELF AND IDENTITY – SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

• Definition: A sociological perspective focusing on how individuals use symbols and interactions to create and interpret meaning in their social world.
• The self is developed through social interactions; personal meaning is constituted via social encounters.
• Symbols carry meaning: gestures, emojis, clothing, and even social media ‘likes’.
• People learn what behaviors to expect from others and what behaviors to exhibit to elicit specific reactions.

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD (1863–1931)

• The self comprises two parts in dialogue: the ‘I’ and the ‘Me’.
• The ‘I’: active aspects of a person—impulses, instincts, behaviors not overtly socialized.
• The ‘Me’: the social self that conditions the ‘I’ to behave in ways suited to social interactions.
• We constantly dialogue with ourselves to conform (or resist) to social expectations.
• Note: This framework laid the groundwork for symbolic interactionism; attributed to Mead and further elaborated by Herbert Blumer (1900–1987).

CHARLES HORTON COOLEY (1864–1929)

• Looking-Glass Self: self-image is shaped by how we think others perceive us.
• Development through three stages:
  1. Imagine how we appear to others.
  2. Imagine how others react to us.
  3. Develop feelings about ourselves based on perceived judgments.
• Self-concept is not built in isolation; it develops through social interactions.

ERVING GOFFMAN (b. 1922)

• The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life (1956): Dramaturgical analysis; we perform daily identities.
  • Front stage: where we perform for others (class, work, online). We follow social rules and play roles.
  • Back stage: where we can be ourselves and drop the performance (private spaces).
  • Impression management: attempt to control how others see us by adjusting behavior, appearance, and speech (e.g., dressing for a job interview).
  • Roles and scripts: social scripts depend on context (student, friend, customer, teacher, etc.).
  • Audience: the presence of others influences how we act.
• Asylums (1961) and Stigma (1963): further development of self in social contexts.
  • Total Institution: places where people are isolated and subject to strict rules (e.g., military camps, psychiatric hospitals, prisons). Daily life is highly regulated; former identities may be stripped and replaced by an inmate/patient identity.
  • Stigma: a powerful negative label that changes how people view someone and how they view themselves.
  • Passing: hiding stigma (e.g., concealing sexuality) to avoid discrimination.

HOWARD BECKER (b. 1928)

• Labelling Theory: deviance is socially constructed; acts become deviant when society labels them as such.
• The rules are applied unequally across different groups; not everyone is equally likely to be labeled.
• Once labeled (e.g., as a ‘troublemaker’), individuals may internalize the label and act accordingly—self-fulfilling prophecy.
• In Goffman’s terms, this is part of how one learns their “lines.”

BECKER AND THE OUTSIDERS (1963)

• Powerful groups decide what is considered normal and deviant:
  • In colonial settler nations, white definitions of Black culture as deviant (ignorant, lazy, dangerous, violent, backward, primitive).
  • The middle classes define the working class as deviant (bad taste, vulgar, lazy, underserving, “bludgers,” violent, feckless).
  • In patriarchy, men define what is unfeminine for women (e.g., slut, dog);
    and men occupy institutions that decide gender norms.
  • Adults define deviance for young people (precocious, too young to drink/vote/drive; “in my day” attitudes).
• Raises questions about how disciplines (social work, psychology, criminology, law) and other human sciences can affect those labeled as objects of expertise.

Part 2: Foucault — Power, Bodies, Technology

BEYOND THE AGENCY–STRUCTURE BINARY

• Many contemporary sociologists view agency and structure, self and society, as co-constituted; no need to choose sides.
• Oversimplified explanations often blame agency or structure exclusively; sociology aims to reveal the complexity of lived lives beyond media narratives.
• References to later course content: Bourdieu (class), Judith Butler (performativity), and “racism without racists.”
• Aim here: move beyond binary explanations; recognize that labeling theories capture part of the story but not its full complexity.

MICHEL FOUCAULT (1926–1984) — Power

• Interested in how power operates in everyday life, not just through laws or governments, but through institutions (schools, hospitals, prisons, workplaces).
• Turned questions from “Who has power?” to “How does power work?”
• Shift from sovereign power (kings/queens and coercion) to disciplinary power: governance occurs through everyday institutions and interactions; individuals govern themselves.
• Disciplinary power relies on experts, managers, and technology to pervade daily life, instilling routine, habits, and surveillance as forms of social control.
• The phrase “governed through our freedom” highlights self-regulation as a key feature of modern power dynamics—challenging the simple structure/agency dichotomy.

TERMINOLOGY AND KEY IDEAS FROM FOUCAULT

• Expert knowledges: specialized ways of understanding people (psychology, medicine, education) that confer power to define what is “normal,” “healthy,” or “correct.”
  • Examples: Psychiatry defines what is “normal” or “disordered”; education tests/classifies students as “smart” or “failing.”
• Discourses: ways of talking and thinking that define truth and normality across different domains (medicine, law, education, etc.).
• Technologies of the self: ways individuals train, discipline, or manage themselves to align with social expectations of what is “normal,” “good,” or “successful.”
  • Example: going to the gym to become “fit” as a technology of the self.

PANOPTICON AND THE DOCILE BODY

• Panopticon (Bentham): a central guard can observe all prisoners without being seen; inmates act as if they are always watched.
• Modern society operates similarly: constant observation leads to self-regulation, even beyond direct surveillance.
• The rise of smartphones, social media, apps, and GPS intensifies these dynamics.
• Docile body: a body trained, regulated, and disciplined to be obedient and productive without the use of force (e.g., workers at desks, following schedules, presenting a professional appearance).

BODIES, SEXUALITY, AND POWER

• History of Sexuality (Foucault): to illustrate how discourse and power work in constructing sexuality.
• The emergence of new expert bodies of knowledge (discourses) that ‘created’ homosexuality and framed it as perverse via:
  • Medicine: treated homosexuality as a medical issue/illness.
  • Psychiatry: diagnosed as a mental illness and treated with EST.
  • Legal systems: criminalized or regulated homosexuality.
  • Religion: condemned as sin.
• Yet this process also enabled resistance: a reverse discourse that allowed homosexuals to speak on their own behalf using the same language of oppression.
• This demonstrates how discourse can both support and subvert dominant power.

Part 3: The Self and Society in Changing Times

UNCERTAINTIES, POSSIBILITIES, TENSIONS, RISKS

• Globalisation theorists (Beck, Bauman, Castells) analyze the tie between global social change and the self.
• At the level of the self:
  • People have become more individualised, more anxious, and more precarious; greater need for reflexivity.
  • General feelings of insecurity and growing distrust of expertise, even as we rely on it more than ever.
  • Life feels riskier and more uncertain, though most in the Global North are physically safer than ever before.

FROM BABUSKHA DOLLS TO TIGHTROPE WALKERS

• Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (and, by reference, Anthony Giddens) describe life in the mid-20th century as nested roles like a Russian Babuschka doll.
  • Example: a married, heterosexual couple with children; traditional roles: man as breadwinner, woman as full-time caregiver.
  • Acknowledges the inequalities of such arrangements but notes they provided certainty.
• Social change has pulled these nested roles apart; individuals must design and stage their own lives (the “do it yourself” biography).
• Modern lives are no longer like nested dolls but like tightrope walkers and jugglers—highly individualized, professionally and personally precarious.

Detraditionalisation and Individualism

• Detraditionalisation: traditional beliefs, customs, and roles lose power in everyday life; choices less constrained by family, religion, or locality.
• Individualism: prioritizes personal freedom, autonomy, and self-expression over collective responsibilities; identity built around personal goals and self-definition (e.g., dress, career).
• Solutions to problems shift from government/community/church to market mechanisms and individual action, contingent on one’s cultural, economic, and social capital.
• Setbacks are increasingly framed as personal failures rather than fate or structural determinants.

DEBORAH LUPTON AND THE QUANTIFIED SELF

• The practice of using technology to collect data about oneself (fitness trackers, biometrics, apps).
• Key ideas:
  • Self-surveillance: individuals monitor and regulate behavior based on data.
  • Neoliberalism and self-optimization: people are viewed as projects to be managed and improved.
  • Datafication of the body: body metrics (steps, heart rate, sleep quality) become a source of information.
  • Impacts on identity: numbers and algorithms increasingly shape self-understanding.

DONNA HARAWAY AND THE CYBORG

• Definition: A cyborg is a hybrid of machine and organism; it blurs boundaries between human and non-human.
• Key ideas:
  1) Technological embodiment: we are already cyborgs in everyday life (smartphones, pacemakers, prosthetics).
  2) Challenges binary thinking: human vs. machine, natural vs. artificial, male vs. female.
  3) Posthuman identity: the cyborg can symbolize resistance to the idea that the human should be the central focus of sociology; technologies and algorithms are increasingly central to the social world.

SUMMARY AND NEXT WEEK

• Understanding the relationship between self and society remains a core sociological question and a central aspect of the structure/agency debate.
• Symbolic interactionism shows that self-concept is built through interactions and judgments of others.
• New sociological frameworks are increasingly examining the self in relation to technology and digital life.
• Coming weeks will also address persistent structures of inequality within socialisation and life chances across gender, race, class, sexuality, and place.
• Next week focuses on culture and the media and their influence on individuals and broader society.