Foucault’s work can be summarized in three major shifts from the archaeological focus on systems of knowledge in the 1960s, to the genealogical focus on modalities of power in the 1970s and to the focus on technologies of the self, ethics, and freedom in the 1980s. Foucault contributed in many fields in the humanities and social sciences. As a member of postmodernist movement and in line with their deconstruction paradigm, he tried to show the problematic and suspicious aspects of rationality, knowledge, subjectivity, and the production of social norms. He thought that the quest of power invaded social and personal life and pervaded schools, hospitals, prisons, and social sciences. Foucault saw a link between power, truth and knowledge and he argued that liberal-humanist values became entangled with, and the supports of technologies of domination. He criticized both macro theorists who see power only in terms of class or the state, and micro theorists who analyze institutions and face-to-face interaction while ignoring power altogether.
