The contemporary forms of domination and surveillance: Total institution, disciplinary power and camp

In the modern society, there are established and institutionalized forms of domination and surveillance. The thinkers such as E. Goffman, M. Foucault ve G. Agamben developed important theoretical approaches and conceptual tools in order to shed light on these phenomena. Oppression practices through total institutions, power relations and camp are very important concepts that are given a central importance in explaining the modern forms of domination and surveillance. Such analyses focus on such places as psychiatric institutions, schools, refugee camps, nursing homes and prisons. Today, total institutions are taken into consideration in an interdisciplinary framework under the common denominator of "confinement". Goffman treats the total institutions as spaces of the self and the loss of the self. The self-being of the confined individual is stripped and a new self is dressed, and the identity set formed in social life is destroyed and a new identity is constructed. Foucault says that legal power has been replaced by disciplinary and regulatory power. According to Foucault, power is everywhere within the network of relationships. The camp which is highlighted in Agamben's works is a place where the exceptions become rules over time. The camp is an illegitimate law space where the law is suspended. In this study, "total institution", "disciplinary institution" and "camp" are analyzed as conceptualization tools of confinement, and the process of these conceptual tools is mentioned.