Progress, public health, and power: Foucault and the Homemakers' Clubs of Saskatchewan.
From 1911 to 1979, the Homemakers' Clubs of Saskatchewan mobilized and monitored extensive study and action in the field of public health. This article explores how these clubs exhorted women to strive for progress, and encouraged women to internalize such striving as fundamental to their own identities. The techniques used included encouraging commitment to shared goals, making such goals personal, structuring action, requiring women to report their thoughts and actions, rewarding certain behaviors, and linking those behaviors with emotionally compelling causes. Rooted in a Foucauldian conceptual framework, this article contributes to the sociological understanding of subject formation and governance.
McLean
Scott
S
Continuing Education, University of Calgary, Education Tower 202, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 1N4. smclean@ucalgary.ca
Rollwagen
Heather
H
D003255:Consumer Organizations / Q000266:history*; D005260:Female; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011209:Power, Psychological; D011634:Public Health / Q000266:history*; D012525:Saskatchewan; D012927:Social Control, Informal / Q000266:history*