Foucault’s work History of Madness lays the groundwork to consider what it means to be marginalized in different times and contexts. When Foucault considers the marginalized, he is considering those who have been discarded by their social structures. Foucault considers this group in terms of the Great Confinement in France, when many individuals were collected from around the country and placed in insane asylums whether they were truly mad or not. Foucault argues that it is so important to really understand who was being deemed as insane because it allows us to consider the power imbalances in this specific moment in time. During this historical moment the categorization of the mad here is the criminal, the poor, the unemployed, and then the insane. Most of the people being confined to mental asylums in France at the time Foucault is examining are not actually the insane but they are people who are a problem for French society and specifically French political structures. The structures specifically in power are the ones putting those deemed in the category of mad into asylums. Those power structures being the monarchy and the church. These two systems can get rid of troublesome people through this categorizing. This period is where the invention of the classical definition of madness occurred though Foucault also considers deeply what it means to be deemed insane in the first place through is criticism of Descartes. Using this categorization, we can try to apply this same logic to our modern-day scapegoats. Who are the individuals who are a “problem” in the modern-day context who have been singled out to be removed from these societal structures.
As I am writing this there have been 456 bills throughout the United States that are targeting LGBTQIA+ rights. It can be clear that the category of the marginalized in our current moment is looking at queer individuals specifically transgender folks. This study will use a comparative method to consider the historical understanding that Foucault writes about to include understandings of the insane and the ways in which the Great Confinement worked to remove troublesome people from the public eyes and the current moment in which queer individuals in the United States and around the world are being singled out as a problem that must be solved. Through an in depth look at Foucault’s theories on madness and a consideration of biopolitics this study will examine the ways in which power plays a role in what is deemed as appropriate societally. In the current examination of queer and trans bodies we will consider the most recent data from the U.S Trans Survey and the information being compiled by the ACLU about legislation against queer bodies compared analyzed through the lens of necropolitics developed from understanding Foucault’s biopolitics. This type of power is that of regulating death and dying within societal structures. In this way in modern society the death and dying of queer folks is necessitated through the ways in which the government perpetuates fear around the dangerous of queerness especially for children. In this way the government can be seen as signing death warrants for queer people because as criminals and “perverts” these people are so dangerous that hate crimes done against them are not seen as real crimes but instead as a way of regulating the whole. Overall, the study of madness and the marginalized is not new but applying these theories to the current cultural moment asks us to consider the imbedded power relations that are complicating how social structures make everyday people complicit in oppressive systems.
Foucault’s work History of Madness lays the groundwork to consider what it means to be marginalized. When Foucault considers the marginalized, he is considering those who have been discarded by their social structures. Foucault considers this group in terms of the Great Confinement in France, when many individuals were collected from around the country and placed in insane asylums whether they were truly mad or not. Foucault argues that it is so important to really understand who was being deemed as insane because it allows us to consider the power imbalances in this specific moment. During this historical moment the categorization of the mad here is the criminal, the poor, the unemployed, and then the insane. Using this categorization, we can apply this logic to our modern-day scapegoats. Who are the individuals who are a “problem” in the modern-day context and singled out to be removed from these societal structures.