Re‐mapping power in educational micropolitics

Abstract

This article examines power as a concept that operates covertly and panoptically in schools. My goal in discussing stealth forms of power is to discuss methodological opportunities that result when formalizing power other than as a binary of authority–influence. The article offers four methodological axioms for consideration when researching stealth forms of power in schools. I conclude by arguing that micropolitical researchers should, at the very least, address units‐of‐analysis that describe how organizational structures are reproduced. More importantly, I argue that micropolitical researchers should identify units‐of‐analysis that explain how organizational interests are fabricated, or what other scholars have described as a process of libidinal production. It is here that I discuss four methodological axioms when mapping desire in education.

Keywords:

• Deleuze
• desire
• Guattari
• micropolitics
• power

Notes

1. Some different conceptions of power include feminist (Hartsock, 1983), covert (Bachrach & Baratz, 1970), panoptic (Foucault, 1977), desire (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), and radically interior (Lukes, 1974) to name but a few.

2. The title of this article was generated in response to Malen's (1994) work: The micropolitics of education: mapping the multiple dimensions of power relations in school politics. This important work, I would argue, discussed ways of tracing school politics rather than mapping them. This distinction is central to the methodological claims Deleuze and Guattari (1987) discuss, and that this paper argues.

3. I have omitted feminist conceptions of power in this analysis. I believe such conceptions of power would produce a different way of understanding micropolitics and schooling. Feminist conceptions of power require their own analysis to articulate the potential for micropolitical action, and such an intriguing analysis lies outside the space of this article.

4. I am aware that ‘surveil’ is not considered as a word. However, I use it throughout the discussion, borrowing from Fraser (1989), because it better signifies an intention to coerce. I use the supposed gerund ‘surveiling’ and past participle ‘surveiled’ for their rhetorical benefits as well.

5. For example, strategies are often a broad category of micropolitical evidence that include, but are not limited to, talk, agenda setting, cooptation, displacement, etc.

6. The figure was adapted from Talbert, McLaughlin, and Rowan (1993).

7. I use the term ‘isomorphic’ in its generally accepted use; i.e. isomorphism as a one‐to‐one mapping between an object and its purported property, identity, or function. I use the term to raise attention to the distinction between ‘core’ interests or beliefs and interests or desires fabricated from power. As such, isomorphic interests are those interests mapped onto specific territories and territories demarcated from essentialized identities.

8. I borrowed the title from Foster (1989).

9. I am using the term segmentation and its use in micropolitical analyses from Deleuze and Guattari (1987, pp. 208–231).