A study on relationship of power and body in Michel Foucault

Foucault conceptualises the notions of "power" and "body" in a way that may have different meanings in the political philosophy. Power refers to the power relations in the field of humane relations that operate at micro level. In this sense, power and body relations in Foucault should be perceived in the context of micro relations that exist in every field of life. Foucault confers with history in order to reveal these comprehensive and complicated relations. Because, it is necessary to know the way in which power appeared in the course of history. Thus, Foucault, focusing on the historical formation conditions of experiences such as madness, sexuality, crime and illness, tries to show how these experiences are transformed into power technologies as both institutional and discursively within communal living. This thesis aims to demonstrate how Foucault problematized the concepts of madness, sexuality, crime, illness, security and population which he chose to explain the relationships of power and body. Additionally, however, this thesis questions political rationalities that power creates based on these concepts it produces over body. In this sense, this dissertation focuses on demonstrating the contradictions of power that always claims to advocate human and humanitarian values in the existing World. Thus, the present study involves a political criticism of the Western World depending on vital elements such as "security", "danger" and "health" each of which have been transformed into the slogan of power. Keywords: Power, Body, Madness, Sexuality, Security and Population.