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The Good Shepherd Asylum & Foucauldian Surveillance

Part 1 Dissertation 2022
Angela Agrito
University College Cork | Ireland
As Howeler states in his piece ‘Anxious Architectures: The Aesthetics of Surveillance’ architectural design traditionally was responsible for ‘defining the limits of the private and the public’ and now serves at ‘spatialising the gaze.’ (Howeler, 2002)

This dissertation focuses on the manifestation of Michel Foucault’s theory of power and control through the institutionalised. Using discourse within Foucauldian surveillance, the concept unravels the psychological and spatial boundaries of human observation. By analysing a theoretical lens in power dynamics and the social discourse of incarceration through design as well as conformity, the methodology taken adapts Foucauldian ideology into the context of Ireland’s ‘architecture of containment’. (Smith, 2007) In exploring the social, historical and architectural identity of the Good Shepherd Asylum in Cork as an example of the Magdalene Laundries’ containment culture, the research undertaken has developed an analysis of the surveillance system used in the asylum. A system whereby Foucault’s notion of ‘power over mind’ is embedded in the Good Shepherd’s spatial and societal parameters.

Angela Agrito

Tutor(s)
Kieran Cremin
Tara Kennedy
2022
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