Foucault and the Politics of Self-Government

This thesis examines Foucault’s politics of self-government. Through an analysis of Foucault’s work on power and ethics, it demonstrates the multifaceted political dimensions of the ethical practices of the care of the self. Particularly, it identifies two possible meanings of the politics of the care of the self: self-fashioning as a form of voluntary servitude, and self-fashioning as a form of voluntary inservitude or resistance.