Through a Foucauldian Lens. A Genealogy of Child Abuse. Bell, Sheri. Journal of Family Violence. Feb2011, Vol. 26 Issue 2, p101 108.

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Through a Foucauldian Lens: A Genealogy of Child Abuse
Sheri Bell
Published online: 13 January 2011
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract This theoretical paper takes on a difficult and
dangerous argument: that ‘child abuse’ is socially con-
structed. By using Michel Foucault’s analysis of the
complex interplay between power and knowledge, we
may be able to explain the changing forms that the struggle
against child abuse has taken, without minimizing the
reality of the suffering that abuse causes. By examining the
historical role that state and child welfare movements
played in developing child protective services in North
America, we discover how scientific epistemology and
medical discourse on child abuse have come together to
shape and construct societal beliefs about abusers. This
analysis allows us to deepen our understanding of child
abuse and the means to preventing it, as well as guides us in
developing better and more informed social policies.
Keywords Foucault . Medical discourse . Child abuse .
Mary Ellen . Abuser-as-ill
...the ancient patria potestas...granted the father of the
Roman family the right to “dispose” of the life of his
children and his slaves; just as he had given them life,
so he could take it away ~ Foucault (1990, p. 135).
Within this paper, several dimensions of child abuse
shall be explored through a Foucauldian lens, with
particular focus on the abuser-as-ill paradigm. The paper
begins with an examination of the historical role the state
and child welfare movements played in developing child
protective services in North America, with Mary Ellen’s
story the catalyst for the development of child protection
legislation. The paper culminates in a discussion of how
scientific epistemology and medical discourse on child
abuse have been interwoven to bring forth changes in
societal beliefs about the abusers. Applying Foucauldian
theory to the analysis of child abuse has both limitations
and strengths, but in moving past its limitations, we may
reach a clearer understanding of how power/knowledge
contributes to the construction of individual beliefs
surrounding child maltreatment and abusers.
Labor-Force Medicine
Since the Age of Enlightenment, there has been a gradual
shift in attitude towards governing that involves a greater
emphasis on the state’s ability to manage its resources,
including children of the state (see Foucault 1972, 1984).
Prior to the 18th century, individuals could little afford to
invest time, energy, or become attached to children due to
high child mortality rates (Conrad and Schneider 1985).1
1 Lack of attachment to children is evidenced in many areas of the
world with high child mortality rates (see Scheper-Hughes’ 1992
study of bonding in northeast Brazil; and Hern’s 2004 discussion of
the delay in naming children among the Shipibo of Peru). Addition-
ally, familial bonds are often not formed with children that are
believed to be unable to make contributions to the family through
labor (See Mull and Mull’s 1987 study on culturally sanctioned
infanticide among the Tarahumara), or who happen to be the wrong
gender (See Divale and Harris’ 1976 study on horticultural societies;
Miller’s 1997 study on infanticide in India; and Frideres’ 1998 study
on the Inuit). For a thorough discussion of how the development of
strong familial bonds could lead to untold amounts of grief for parents
in high infant/child mortality nations see Bowlby 1969, 1973, 1977.
S. Bell (*)
Department of Sociology, University of Manitoba,
108–183 Dafoe Road, Isbister Building,
Winnipeg R3T 2N2 MB, Canada
e-mail: umbell42@cc.umanitoba.ca
J Fam Viol (2011) 26:101–108
DOI 10.1007/s10896-010-9347-z
Gradually, as state interest in the health of the population
increased, child mortality rates decreased and by the 18th
century the state was playing an active role in the health of
its population (Foucault 1984). What materialized was the
concept of “labor-force medicine.” In capitalist nations,
the objective of this policy was to improve the health of
the population so as to increase the productivity of the
workforce and grow the national economy (see Foucault
1984). Medical knowledge, therefore, became increasingly
important, imbuing power to those with knowledge of
health, illness, and the body (see Foucault 1984). Due to
implementation of labor-force medical policy, paupers and
the impoverished, including children, were divided into
“the willfully idle and the involuntary unemployed,” and
so the aim was to “set the ‘able-bodied’ poor to work and
transform them into a useful labor force” (Foucault 1984,
p. 276).
The Birth of Childhood
During the 18th and 19th centuries, at the age of seven,
children of the lower classes were treated the same as adults
under the law and were put to work in industrial factories
(Hick 1998). Children of the upper echelons of society,
instead of working as factory hands, were slowly trained as
managers, becoming the first to benefit from the newly
emerging concept of “childhood” (Conrad and Schneider
1985). After belief in “childhood” became widespread in all
sectors of society, children everywhere were seen as
innocent, dependent, and in need of protection, guidance,
and discipline. As Aries notes, “The idea of childish
innocence resulted in two kinds of attitude and behavior
towards childhood: firstly, safeguarding it against pollution
of life [...]; and secondly, strengthening it by developing
character and reason” (1962, p. 119). This belief eventually
led to the creation of special institutions to educate all
children, but in particular, “to render profitable in the short
or long term the educating of orphans and foundlings”
(Foucault 1984, p. 276).
This new way of seeing “childhood” produced a new
kind of knowledge in society, a new way of determining
what is true. As a result, the family became “a dense,
saturated, permanent, continuous physical environment
which envelops, maintains, and develops the child’s body”
(Foucault 1984, p. 280). Hospitals became institutions of
knowledge production, and the health of children became
“target for a great enterprise of medical acculturation”
(ibid). Books, journals, and medical direction on the care of
youth, were written to educate the population, and to
produce the next wave of healthy laborers (Foucault 1984).
Wanting to maintain the health of the population, child
maltreatment and neglect soon became recognized as
detrimental to society and the capitalist paradigm, and thus
action was taken to control and prevent its occurrence
(Pfohl 1977).
The Child Saver Movements
The child saver movements of the 19th and 20th centuries,
including the “house of refuge” movement, the turn of the
century campaigns by the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children, and the rise of juvenile courts, were a
direct result of the recognition of the negative impact of
neglect and maltreatment of children on society (Pfohl
1977). Rather than saving the child, the primary objective
of these movements was to save society from future
delinquents by removing poor, urban youths from corrupt
environments and placing them in institutional settings
(ibid). Foucault states, “it is not a matter of offering support
to a particularly fragile, troubled and troublesome margin of
the population, but of how to raise the level of health of the
social body as a whole” so as to relate “the imperatives of
labor to the needs of production” (1984, p. 277). In other
words, “The biological traits of a population [became]
relevant factors for economic management, and it [was]
necessary to organize around them an apparatus which will
ensure not only their subjection but the constant increase of
their utility” (ibid, p. 279). In institutional settings, youth
could learn order, regularity and obedience (see Rothman
1971), and so “itwas children, not their abusive guardians,
who felt the weight of the moral crusade. They, not their
parents, were institutionalized” (Pfohl 1977, p. 311).
In 1825, the first house of refuge opened in New York
City to provide protection and incarcerate delinquents,
street urchins, children of the poor, and the disobedient
(Conrad and Schneider 1985). Soon other houses of refuge
opened across North America. These institutions became
the model for modern day juvenile reformatories, with
legislation eventually recognizing the utility of intervening
in the lives of delinquents and the need for creating a
special children’s court (ibid). The first children’s court was
established in Illinois in 1899 and subsequently spread
across North America. By invoking the concept of parens
patriae, these courts “regulate[d] the treatment and control
of dependent, neglected and delinquent children” (Platt
1969, p. 134). The arguments made by the houses of refuge
and the early juvenile court system for incarcerating
children were that children needed both protection and
reform, and, therefore, the state must intervene in their best
interests. The belief was that, “Discipline sometimes
requires enclosure” (Foucault 1995, p. 141, emphasis
original). Though protection was stressed, their concern
largely surrounded child neglect and it was not until the
founding of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
102 J Fam Viol (2011) 26:101–108
Children that “child protection” took on the full meaning it
has today (see Conrad and Schneider 1985; Pfohl 1977;
Platt 1969; Rothman 1971).
Mary Ellen’s Story
In 1874, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals intervened on behalf of Mary Ellen, a viciously
abused 9 year old girl (Lazoritz and Shelman 1996). Mary
Ellen was a foster child forced into a life of servitude,
beatings, and imprisonment at the hands of her foster
mother, Mary Connolly. Neighbors reported a child’s cries
of pain to Etta Wheeler, a mission worker, who was
eventually able gain access to the apartment to see the
beaten child. After witnessing the child’s plight, Wheeler
began to advocate on Mary Ellen’s behalf. Wheeler was
able to get the American Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals to take up the case and have Mary Ellen
removed from her home. Their argument was that “Mary
Ellen was a member of the animal kingdom, and thus could
be included under the laws which protected animals from
human cruelty” (Conrad and Schneider 1985, p. 162). It is
clear that in this period of history the status and fate of
children and animals were intertwined, both being merely
the chattel of their respective owners.
Out of the successful prosecution of Mary Connolly,
who received 1 year of hard labor, and the successful
removal of Mary Ellen from her home, the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children was formed (ibid). “Most
experts consider this horrifying case to have been the
catalyst for legislation that prosecuted and convicted
parents and guardians who subjected children to neglect,
violence, and abuse” (Jalongo 2006, p. 1). However, it was
not long before social welfare organizations, such as the
Children’s Division of the American Humane Association,
the Public Welfare Association, and the Child Welfare
League, called for more research on abuse and “began
lobbying for ‘treatment based’ (i.e., not punitive) legisla-
tion” (Pfohl 1977, pp. 319–320). Therefore, rather than
child abusers simply facing legal ramifications for their
actions, they also came under the purview of the medical
establishment, the “medical gaze” (Foucault 1989). To
illustrate: “Legislative committees concerned with abuse
legislation [are] nearly always chaired by a physician,
usually a pediatrician associated with academic medicine
(Pfohl 1977); so undoubtedly medical positions [are] well
represented” (Conrad and Schneider 1985, p. 166). Accord-
ing to Gelles, “The single most persistent myth which
encumbers understanding child abuse is the notion that
someone who physically beats or injures a child is
somehow mentally disturbed or ill” (1976, p. 138). Thus,
the question arises: “How did society come to believe and
accept medicine’s paradigm of abusers-as-ill?” To uncover
the answer, we must look at the rise of scientific
epistemology and the direction of medical discourse.
Science as Truth
During the Classical Greek period of Aristotle and Plato,
the ascendency of science over religion changed how the
world was understood. Beliefs in divine and mystical
events were rejected, with reliance placed instead on reason
and intellect. This led to scientific empiricism becoming the
dominant myth in modernity, with “truth through reason”
understood as the only way to accurately perceive the world
(Suzuki 1985). Science, then, can be understood as a
narrative in which individuals are told a story of “truth”
which provides a recipe for individuals to follow regarding
their behavior and relations within the world (Turner 1995).
Medicine, aligning itself with science, assumes a powerful
role as arbiter of truth in society, determining what is seen
and observed, and therefore, what is knowledge. Thus,
science, as the dominant way of knowing, helped to
establish the societal belief of child abusers as sick and in
need of cure.
It must be recognized, however, that individual beliefs
and attitudes towards abuse do not exist in isolation, but are
a part of a shared system of beliefs. The validity of the
belief that child abusers are “sick” is relative to one’s social
and cultural location and “the extent that there is a
probability that action will in fact be oriented to it” (Weber
1978, p. 32). Once illness-as-cause of child abuse is
deemed legitimate knowledge people’s behaviors and
subjectivity become structured in ways that are considered
acceptable and meaningful to others. To illustrate, excessive
alcohol intake, once viewed as a moral issue in society, has
today been redefined as a medical issue called alcoholism.
The socially constructed label of alcoholism entitles the
alcoholic to all the rights and responsibilities of the sick
role, including the idea that the excessive drinking is not
their fault (see Parsons 1951). The individual is thus offered
the subjectivity of an alcoholic, affecting the way the
individual is reacted to and treated by others (for example
see Goffman 1959, 1961; Hinshaw 2007) including lessen-
ing of the daily role expectations of the individual with the
“spoiled identity” (Goffman 1959, 1961) or even excluding
that individual from social functions. In the case of child
abuse, science has argued that parents who abuse are
characterized by particular psychopathic personality traits
(see Burgess and Draper 1989; Gardner 1999; Gelles 1976;
Kempe et al. 1985). Once legitimacy has been established for
the sickness model of abusers, other beliefs, such as
precipitating social antecedents, like poverty-as-cause, may
possibly become marginalized. By treating abusers as sick
J Fam Viol (2011) 26:101–108 103
the issue of abuse becomes individualized and distracts from
more collective, societal roots of child abuse.
The “experiential” knowledge regarding abuse is trans-
mitted to others through a belief system’s particular method
of discourse. Before the “Age of Reason”, illness, suffering
and disasters were often explained by religious authorities
as consequences of “sin”, while after the Scientific
Revolution of the 16th century, it was explained in terms
of sickness (O'Conner 1995). One belief system told the
story of “Pathogens as Disease Causation”, and the other
told the story of “Sin: The Root of All Evil”, yet each
system shares the trait of social construction. These socially
constructed beliefs supply individuals with a general
foundation of knowledge that has been tested in some
way and considered true. For example, incultures where
religion predominates, beliefs may be reinforced by
interpreting daily events as “acts of god” and it is “god’s
will” a tsunami hit and killed so many people. Each belief
system, therefore, has its own methods of discourse in
which knowledge is transmitted to others (ibid). For
western cultures, one of the dominant avenues of discourse
about child abusers is via medicine, in particular via the
disciplines of psychiatry and psychology.
Knowledge as Power
“What we know about the world is simply the outcome of
the arbitrary conventions we adopt to describe the world”
(Turner 1995, p. 11). Being able to apply socially
constructed labels, such as “psychopathic abuser” implies
that the one furnishing the label has the greater knowledge.
Knowledge, then, acts as a form of social control,
structuring actions, beliefs and behavior, and thus for
Foucault, power and knowledge are inseparable, with any
act of knowing also being an act of power (in Turner 1995,
pp. 10–11). According to Foucault:
We should admit rather that power produces knowl-
edge... that power and knowledge directly imply one
another; that there is no power relation without the
correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor
any knowledge that does not presuppose and consti-
tute at the same time power relations (1995, p. 27).
This power, however, is often hidden from its users,
with all individuals seemingly caught in the social webs
of knowledge/power interactions. “Even those who are
aware of the objectifying aspects of the power-
knowledge relation are unable to develop effective ways
of breaking free of its sticky strands” (Davenport 2000,
p. 312). So when medical institutions shifted their gaze
towards the child abuser, they began objectifying, observ-
ing, measuring, and treating, as well as gathering and
collecting dossiers of knowledge. These dossiers became a
form of power to label.
The knowledge the institutions garnered from these
observations, no matter how exact, “are always open to
the influence of social factors in their production, trans-
mission, and development” (Freund et al. 2003, p. 196). For
instance, although emergency room physicians were more
likely to encounter child abuse, it was pediatric radiologists
who actually saw child abuse as a medical entity and first
reported it in medical journals throughout the 1960s. While
pediatricians and emergency room physicians had massive
evidence of abuse such as burns, scars, blood and bruising,
radiologists were the ones that noted irregularities in X-rays
that could only have been caused by intentional harm
(Pfohl 1977). The reason they saw what emergency room
physicians had missed may have been due to distance and
other social factors. For instance, radiologists remained
apart from external influences in their examination by not
dealing directly with the parents. This may have allowed
radiologists a measure of objectivity that pediatricians and
emergency room physicians lacked as pediatricians and
physicians had to not only treat, but also deal with the
denials and excuses of parents (Conrad and Schneider
1985, p. 163). Further, as a reflection of the dominant views
of society, physicians may have believed that parents have
the prerogative to discipline their children as they see fit
and may have been unwilling to “believe parents would
inflict such injuries” (ibid). It is clear that social factors
influence what knowledge is disseminated within society
even if individuals are unaware of the process.
Medicine’s Control - Biopower
Though knowledge is influenced by social factors, medical
knowledge still translates into a particular discourse that
gives institutions and individuals power over people’s
bodies. Knowledge is something that makes us its subjects,
because we make sense of ourselves and our place in
society by referring back to various bodies of knowledge.
So for Foucault, a new stage in the political history of
society was medicine’s control over life; life of the
individual and life of the population. Foucault states that
“there was an explosion of numerous and diverse techni-
ques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control
of populations, marking the beginning of an era of ‘bio-
power’” (1984, p. 262). Power over the body, “bio-power”,
can be organized into two forms: “bio-politics” and
“anatomo-politics” (ibid). According to Foucault,
anatomo-politics are the disciplinary forces used to control
the human body, including the discipline found in institu-
tions such as the army, education, and medicine (ibid). Bio-
politics, on the other hand, are the regulatory mechanisms
104 J Fam Viol (2011) 26:101–108
used to control species’ bodies, and can include population
controls that emerge from demographics, the health of the
population, and resources of the nation (ibid). In terms of
child abuse, the statistics gathered and disseminated by the
medical establishment led to controls implemented in
society such as the passing of laws to protect children and
treatment techniques for the abusers (bio-politics). Further,
individuals are taught through media, medicine and
education to recognize the “risks” of abuse so they may
organize their own behavior (anatomo-politics). Thus,
through bio-politics and anatomo-politics individuals are
taught to recognize what is deemed normal within society
and to respond accordingly.
Normality and Surveillance
For Foucault, “technologies of power” provide citizens with
information about what counts as normal or abnormal
within society (1984, p. 266). This information determines
“the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends
or domination, an objectivizing of the subject” (Foucault
1988, p. 18). Individuals, therefore, are both “regulated by
the state and educated to monitor and regulate their own
behavior” through discourses of normalization; what
Foucault refers to as “governmentality” (in Nye 2003, p.
118). In other words, surveillance for the state is easier
when it is self-surveillance, and so “what governs society
are not legal codes but the perpetual distinction between
normal and abnormal, a perpetual enterprise of restoring the
system of normality” (Nye 2003, p. 118). Biomedical
knowledge of what is normal constantly circulates through-
out society; and through education and discourse, individ-
uals are taught that child abuse is a medical issue with the
abuser needing treatment. Further, due to the negotiated
nature of power/knowledge, individuals are able to lobby
for more treatments, better treatments, new laws, and better
disciplinary measures for the abusers. In this way, individ-
uals contribute to and reproduce the belief that abusers are
sick.
The power/knowledge nexus, however, can be used not
only to regulate and control society, but also to shape
individual subjectivity and behavior. For Foucault, “tech-
nologies of the self”,
permit individuals to effect by their own means or
with the help of others a certain number of operations
on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and
way of being, so as to transform themselves in order
to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom,
perfection, or immortality (1988, p. 18).
Technologies of the self, then, are how individuals act to
improve and better understand their self so as to meet the
standards of normalcy in society. For instance, the
institution of medicine provides citizens with information
about child abuse, deeming it abnormal. This allows
individuals to monitor their own behavior and the behavior
of others so as to avoid being seen as abnormal and
receiving the label of a “sick” abuser.
To understand this further, Foucault argues, there are
“[t]wo ways of exercising power over men, of controlling
their relations, [and] of separating out their dangerous
mixtures” (1995, p. 198). By combining the elements of
observation, individualization,and classification, one can
begin to alter behavior. Through the careful observance of
individuals and through this observance the ability to make
a distinction between normal and abnormal, people become
individually labeled and recognized, and thus, induced by
constant surveillance to engage in disciplined ways.
Foucault referred to this rise of surveillance as a mechanism
of disciplinary power called “panopticism.” The true genius
of panopticism is that it can be used on anyone, anywhere,
anytime; “it acts directly on individuals; it gives ‘power of
mind over mind’” (Foucault 1995, p. 206). Its disciplinary
mechanisms are not a form of power that is exerted directly
(physically) onto individuals. Rather it is a subtle form of
power exerted through, over, within, and with individuals,
reaching into the essence of individuality - a relational
process of power. It does not matter who is watching; it is
the idea of being watched that affects and effects behaviors.
Thus the ultimate power comes from the psychological
manipulation of individual and social subjectivities, “subtle
coercion” rather than physical force (Foucault 1988).
Panopticism is a “generalized function” in the social body
as a whole, “a network of mechanisms [...] everywhere and
always alert, running through society without interruption”
(1995, p. 209). And so discipline shifts from mechanisms
of protection, to those of correction; from mechanisms
designed for specific individuals, to those encompassing
each and every individual and group (Foucault 1995).
As previously stated observation produces knowledge
that becomes synonymous with power as it allows for the
control of populations through the creation of particular
subjectivities; producing and reproducing self-
understanding. For instance, medical knowledge on a
hyperactive child is based on past examinations and
observations. This knowledge is translated into a condition
called ADHD which, in turn, creates a subjectivity that
becomes part of the parent’s and child’s (self)-understand-
ing. In other words, a child displaying hyperactive
tendencies within society is deemed abnormal and in need
of treatment. Parents and children are “disciplined” (by
physicians, educators and society) to recognize that
medication, e.g. Ritalin, will help bring the child under
control. Therefore, parents are subjected to the “gaze” of
teachers, doctors and the social body to ensure that they
J Fam Viol (2011) 26:101–108 105
perform their duty to normalize their children in the
prescribed way. Taking up the subjective understanding of
normal and abnormal childhood behaviors circulated by
medical and education professionals, parents demand better
solutions for the issues. The label ADHD, therefore, is a
form of knowledge that becomes reproduced throughout
society; knowledge that defines normal behaviors and
prescribes methods to achieve normalcy through methods
of discipline. ADHD is a negotiated discourse amongst all
individuals in society, shifting and changing as knowledge
changes.
Similarly the abuse of children has been labeled a sign of
illness, such as psychopathology, which can be treated
medically. Those who abuse may then argue that they
abused their children because: “there is something mentally
wrong me” and it is “just how my brain works”. Further
they may feel their abusive behavior is, in fact, part of a
disease best ameliorated by psycho-pharmaceutical agents
such as Seroquel.
It is salient that medicine is increasingly defining the
dichotomies of life - abuse/not abuse, normal/abnormal,
sick/health - structuring individual beliefs and behaviors,
and encouraging technologies of the self. Medicine is
displacing individuality with a “somatic individuality,”
the tendency to define key aspects of one’s individ-
uality in bodily terms... to think of oneself as
‘embodied’, and to understand that body in the
language of contemporary biomedicine... to code
one’s hopes and fears in terms of this biomedical
body, and to try to reform, cure or improve oneself by
acting on that body (Rose 2003, p. 54).
Thus, what it means to be human is understood more and
more in terms of biology and the corporeal existence we
have. One of the consequences of somatic individuality is
that “if we view people who abuse their children as sick,
then those of us who use physical violence on our own
children do not have to wonder whether we are abusers—
by definition we are not, because we are not ‘sick’” (Gelles
1976, p. 139, emphasis added). Clearly, “What things are
depends on how they are defined; how things are defined
depends on how the general culture allocates phenomena
within the spaces of convention” (Turner 1995, p. 11). To
demonstrate, there is an abundance of literature which
argues that parents who abuse children are often believed to
have psychopathic tendencies (Estroff et al. 1984; Gray et
al. 1977; Justice and Justice 1976; Lynch 1975). Current
research now suggests that the primary cause of psychop-
athy is genetic, not social (Blair et al. 2006; Blonigen et al.
2005; Viding et al. 2005).The outcome of viewing abusers
as “sick” is that individuals refrain from focusing on a
society that deprives parents “of adequate means and
resources to properly care for their children” (Gelles 1976,
p. 139) and instead focuses on the illness metaphor of
abuse.2 This is clearly seen in Steele & Pollock’s classic
argument that,
Social, economic and demographic factors... are
somewhat irrelevant to the actual act of child abuse.
Unquestionably, social and economic difficulties and
disasters put added stress in people’s lives and
contribute to behavior which might otherwise remain
dormant. But such factors must be considered
incidental enhancers rather than necessary and suffi-
cient cause (1968, p. 94).
It can, therefore, be argued that the power/knowledge of
western biomedicine has led to discourses surrounding
child abuse that serves to structure individual beliefs and
societal response to the abuse and abusers. Foucault’s
analytic, thus, accounts for the social organization of child
abuse as a problem and the responses to it.
Issues with Using a Foucauldian Framework
There are several problems in using Foucauldian theorizing
to examine the construction of beliefs about child maltreat-
ment and the abuser-as-ill paradigm. First, according to
Foucault, knowledge surrounding sickness of the abuser
leads to discipline and surveillance among the population.
However, how do we “explain or locate opposition,
resistance and criticism to medical (or any other form of)
dominance” (Turner 1995, p. 14)? In other words, by
couching the sickness of child abusers into something that
can be objectively viewed, disguising the inherent power in
the ability to label, how can resistance develop? Why do
some segments of society believe that medical discourse
surrounding abuse is wrong? Is it due to the rise of other
legitimate beliefs and counter-rhetoric? If so, how does
Foucault account for this change in power? Subsequently,
one must wonder whether “every aspect of modern
2 The illness metaphor as the primary explanation for abuse can be
found in numerous articles over the years. More recently, in 1991,
Prentky & Knight found that 30.5% of child molesters in a treatment
center met the criteria for psychopathy. Dinwiddie and Bucholz (1993)
found that self-reported child abusers were more likely to receive
diagnoses of antisocial personality disorder and major depression, thus
indicating that there is a form of psychological illness. According to
Hare psychopaths “...form a significant proportion of persistent
criminals, drug dealers, spouse and child abusers...” (1996, p. 26,
emphasis added). To this Wiehe (1997) adds that studies in child
abuse show that abusive parents score significantly lower on empathy
measures, lack of which is the key feature of psychopathology.Meanwhile, Murray (2000) reminds us that the sexual abuse of
children is a clinical disorder called “pedophilia”. Finally Trocmé et
al. (2005) identified mental health issues in 37% of primary caregivers
that emotionally maltreated their children.
106 J Fam Viol (2011) 26:101–108
medicine is a contribution to surveillance” (ibid). Does all
medical knowledge lead to technologies of power and the
self and to discourses of normalization? Further, Foucault’s
emphasis on language does not explain how abuse develops
or is sustained; it only explains why it has been labeled
deviant. Foucault’s analysis problematizes the objectivity
claimed by scientific definitions of ‘child abuse’. Finally,
Foucault’s epistemology makes it difficult to discover
whether there is an instigating agent in the circulation of
power/knowledge throughout society. Intuitively one can
hypothesize that the medical-industrial complex instigated
the abuser-as-sick paradigm, though one cannot be sure prior
to actual empirical investigation; however for Foucault there
is no instigator, only circulating power/knowledge.
Conclusion
Regardless of these limitations, Foucault’s perspectives and
concepts provide a powerful framework from which to
analyze child abuse in society. Foucauldian analysis clearly
shows that belief systems surrounding child abuse and
abusers are a complex set of consensually shared and
culturally shaped convictions about the body and individ-
uals. Foucault demonstrates that these convictions are felt
to be legitimate by an individual, group or ethnoculture due
to the possession of particular knowledge. Examining the
historical progression of the recognition of child abusers-as-
ill in society via a Foucauldian framework serves to
illuminate the impact medical discourse has on the
development of individual subjectivity and beliefs. The
importance of Foucault’s perspective lay in seeing that the
individual and population are the products of power and
knowledge, each constructed through the dominant voice of
our time - Science - a voice that leads to policies and
legislation that reflect particular interests, malignant or
benign, repressive or emancipative.
Acknowledgements There are several people who provided support
and guidance in completing this theoretical examination. In particular,
I would like to extend thanks to Dr. Alexander Segall for his continual
and unwavering support; Dr. Christopher Fries for introducing me to
the world of Foucault; Dr. Christopher Powell for his assistance in the
writing process; and Dr. E. Jane Ursel and Dr. Verena Menec for their
constant direction and guidance. Finally, a special thank you to my
touchstone Mary-Anne Kandrack.
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