Continuing Education and the Postmodern Arts of Power

University continuing educators have recognized that political-economic and institutional changes are making social activism more difficult to sustain. This article argues that to build more effective and vigorous forms of social activism, continuing educators need to understand how systems of oppression are changing. In postmodern societies, patterns of oppression are shifting from centralized, explicitly coercive projects of political domination and economic exploitation, to decentred, subtle processes of constructing individuals with the capacity and the desire to govern themselves. To encourage a different mode of thinking about the nature of oppression and power, some aspects of the work of Michel Foucault are interpreted. To provoke a more creative approach to social activism through university continuing education, the article connects Foucault's abstract.


RÉSUMÉ
Les enseignants universitaires en éducation permanente reconnaissent que les changements politicoéconomiques et institutionnels rendent l'animation sociale plus difficilement viable. Cet article souligne que pour construire une animation sociale plus efficace et vigoureuse, les enseignants en éducation permanente doivent comprendre comment changent les systèmes d'oppression. Dans les sociétés à l'ère du postmodernisme, les schémas d'oppression passent des projets centralisés et explicitement coercitifs en domination politique et exploitation économique à des processus subtiles de construction d'individus ayant la capacité et le désir de s'autogouverner. Afin d'encourager un mode différent de pensée sur la nature de l'oppression et du pouvoir, quelques aspects du travail de Michel Foucault sont interpretés dans cet article. La conceptualisation social activism through university continuing education, the article connects Foucault's abstract conceptualization of how power functions with concrete implications for adult educators. Shifting to new forms of social activism will be difficult for continuing educators. Existing paradigms urge us either to empower individuals to escape oppressive social structures or to transform social structures to more adequately suit the needs of individuals. We know little of how to cultivate patterns of human personality that can resist the disciplining and regulating of individuality that are at the heart of postmodern forms of power. abstraite de Foucault sur le fonctionnement du pouvoir est liée à des implications concrètes pour les éducateurs des adultes afin de provoquer une approche plus créative à l'animation sociale dans l'éducation permanente universitaire. Le changement vers de nouvelles formes d'animation sociale sera difficile pour les enseignants en éducation permanente. Les paradigmes actuels nous poussent soit à autoriser les individus à fuir les structures sociales oppressives soit à transformer les structures sociales pour quelles répondent de façon plus adéquate aux besoins des individus. Nous connaissons très peu de choses sur la formation des schémas de personnalité humaine qui peuvent résister à la discipline et au règlement de l'individualité et qui sont au coeur des arts postmodernes du pouvoir.

INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL ACTIVISM
In recent years, university continuing educators in Canada have devoted substantial attention to contemporary political, economic, and cultural changes, as well as to the implications of such changes for adult education institutions, programs, and practices. In 1996, the CAUCE conference theme was "Reflections on the Future of Work and Learning," while that of the joint CAAE -CASAE conference was "Rethinking Education, Training and Employment." Recent publications from all three associations reveal significant interest in how our world is changing, and what the implications are for adult and continuing educators (Bagnall, 1994;CAUCE, 1991;Couture, 1993;Karpiak & Kops, 1995;Little, 1991;Taylor, 1990;Thomas, 1993;Townsend, 1994).
Many adult educators are familiar with contemporary issues such as the rise of the postindustrial economy, the dismantling of the welfare state, and the emergence of postmodern culture and the information age. While considerable debate rages over the future shape of Canadian society, it seems clear that the social conditions in which continuing education institutions and philosophies were constructed are changing dramatically. Existing literature concerning the impact of these changes focuses on a variety of issues, including the future of continuing education institutions, the emergence of new forms of learning needs, and the transformation of professional practices (Baskett & Jackson, 1994;Cauthers, 1991;Foley, 1994;Haughey, 1994;Kirby, 1992;McNair, 1995;Morrison, 1995;Parsley, 1991;Scott, 1994;Waldron, 1994).
Issues of political activism and social responsibility have an important place within debates concerning the future of university continuing education in Canada. Whether through growing professionalization and entrepreneurialism within the field, or through increasingly austere and conservative external environments, it seems to be increasingly difficult to practise social activism through university continuing education. Existing literature concerning adult education for social change contains proud accounts of historical educational initiatives in Canada, as well as normative prescriptions about the importance of maintaining the values and principles of such initiatives (Collins, 1991;Cruikshank, 1991Cruikshank, ,1994aCruikshank, , 1994bHeaney, 1992;McRobie, 1994;Morehouse, 1994;Selman, 1991;Welton, 1987Welton, , 1993Welton, , 1995. Although a strong sense of social responsibility still pervades much university continuing education in Canada, social and institutional changes are making politically and community-oriented educational practices more difficult to undertake.
In literature concerning the future of social activism through university continuing education, there is a curious silence with regard to the need for radically new forms of activist practice. Even though we have recognized that the world is changing and that social activism through adult education is becoming more difficult to sustain, we have not yet adequately recognized that the connection between these two tendencies is inextricable and cannot be explained simply through institutional factors such as budget cutbacks, cost-recovery requirements, or the conservative machinations of university leaders and government funding agencies. The very changes that are making social activism difficult for us to sustain are creating patterns of domination that cannot readily be addressed through existing forms of activism.
To become more effective social activists, continuing educators need to understand not only how political, economic, and cultural structures are changing, but also how corresponding systems of domination are changing. Many continuing educators are struggling against postmodern forms of oppression, with modern understandings of how power functions. The first step towards understanding and resisting emerging patterns of domination in Canada is to learn to think differently about concepts such as oppression, power, and resistance; the work of Michel Foucault is particularly helpful in this regard. Foucault's conceptualization of how power functions in contemporary Western societies has been interpreted here in an attempt to link this abstract conceptualization to the practical task of encouraging social activism through university continuing education. Continuing educators seeking a "how-to" guide to postmodern social activism will be disappointed with this article; my objective is to provoke increased creativity in our approaches to social activism, without prescribing the form that such activism should take.

MICHEL FOUCAULT
Although he died in 1984, Michel Foucault remains one of the most influential figures in contemporary philosophy and social science. A voluminous secondary literature has emerged around Foucault's original works, and "Foucauldian" studies are common in a number of disciplines. While feminist and radical scholars have applied Foucault's insights to the study of initial schooling (Ball, 1990;Corrigan, 1987Corrigan, , 1990Corrigan, Curtis, & Lanning, 1987;Curtis, 1988 ;Faye, 1991;Marshall, 1989;Meadmore, 1993;Paterson, 1988;Ryan, 1989Ryan, , 1991Walkerdine, 1986), relatively few studies of adult and continuing education are written from this perspective (Edwards, 1991;Edwards & Usher, 1994). More significantly, the major conceptual contributions that Foucault made to understanding the nature of power relations in historical and contemporary societies do not seem to be recognized in Canadian literature on continuing education.
Foucault states that "the goal of [his] work during the last twenty years . . . has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects" (1982, p. 777). Foucault offers two meanings for the word subject: "subject to someone else by control and dependence; and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge" (1982, p. 781). In either case, human beings become subject to arbitrary patterns of thought and practice that come to be recognized, by themselves and others, as integral to their being. These taken-for-granted patterns of subjectivity are closely linked to political governance in contemporary Western societies; governance is accomplished in such societies not through violent and explicitly coercive tactics, but rather through the construction and disciplining of self-governing citizens.
Over his career, Foucault identified and documented three "modes of objectification" through which, in Western societies, human beings become subjects. First, Foucault (1970Foucault ( , 1972 documented "modes of inquiry" through which people's socially acquired characteristics are objectified. For example, linguistics objectifies the speaking subject, economics objectifies the producing subject, and biology objectifies the living subject. Second, Foucault (1967Foucault ( , 1973Foucault ( , 1977 examined "dividing practices" through which people are categorized according to supposedly objective characteristics. Within the institutions of psychiatry, medicine, and criminal justice, human beings are divided according to categories such as "the mad and the sane, the sick and the healthy, the criminals and the good boys" (Foucault, 1982, p. 778). Third, Foucault (1978Foucault ( , 1986b) studied domains of human experience-principally, sexuality-through which people come to recognize and understand themselves as individual subjects.
Although Foucault did not analyze education in great detail, all three of his modes of objectification can be identified in adult education settings. As a mode of inquiry, academic studies of adult education tend to objectify human beings as "learning" subjects. As a field of practice, adult education frequently divides and categorizes human beings according to categories such as "the educated" or "the qualified." As a domain of experience, adult education is often structured to make individuals, through processes such as needs assessment, counselling, and evaluation, recognize themselves as subjects with objective characteristics. Although many aspects of his work are salient for adult educators, the focus here is on the manner in which Foucault challenges people to think differently about the concepts of oppression, power, and resistance. This focus has a practical intention; through thinking differently about these concepts, university continuing educators may be able to construct more effective forms of social activism for the postmodern world.

OPPRESSION
To work effectively for social change, university continuing educators need to understand both the broad patterns of oppression that characterize the postmodern world and the variety of power relations that sustain and resist these patterns. Michel Foucault challenges conventional thinking about the nature of systematic oppression in Western societies in two fundamental ways. First, he rejects the notion that oppression is a top-down apparatus of power, and suggests instead that systems of oppression are constituted by diverse practices and relations in which all people are involved. Foucault argues that in "political thought and analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the king" (1978, p. 88); he also urges that "we must eschew the model of Leviathan in the study of power" (1986a, p. 237). The basic point of these enigmatic phrases is that rather than look for oppression in centralized structures, such as the state or capitalism, we need to understand how people's daily thoughts and practices are trapped within, and support, systematically oppressive patterns of social relations.
In rejecting the notion that oppression has an overall unity, Foucault challenges people to examine their own involvement in systems of power. He writes that the analysis of oppression should not concern itself with the regulated and legitimate forms of power in their central locations, with the general mechanisms through which they operate, and the continual effects of these. On the contrary, it should be concerned with power at its extremities, in its ultimate destinations, with those points where it becomes capillary, that is, in its more regional and local forms and institutions. (1986a, p. 232) Oppression, then, is not the result of a clever, top-down conspiracy. As Foucault suggests with respect to Bentham's "Panopticon" (an architectural structure designed for the constant surveillance of inmates): One doesn't have here a power which is wholly in the hands of one person who can exercise it alone and totally over the others. It's a machine in which everyone is caught, those who exercise power just as much as those over whom it is exercised. (1980, p. 156) Rather than conceptualize oppression as a centralized structure, we should understand it as the outcome of diverse and dispersed social practices.
For university continuing educators in Canada, a decentred conceptualization of oppression presents both a sobering recognition and an empowering incitement to practise social activism. The sobering recognition is that we are all implicated in systems of oppression; while no continuing education programs explicitly seek to support pernicious forms of social relations, many do contribute to creating patterns of citizenship and personality that perpetuate them. The empowering element is that we can all practise social activism; while some programming areas, such as labour education and women's studies, are explicitly mandated to resist specific forms of oppression, there is room for all continuing educators to work for social change. Since oppression is not limited to centralized institutions, we can challenge it by creating programs that, through their structure if not through their objectives, model alternative and non-oppressive forms of social relations.
Second, Foucault argues that patterns of oppression are specific to certain places and times. He suggests that three broad types of social struggle have characterized human history: political domination, economic exploitation, and subjection (1982, p. 781). While not mutually exclusive, one form is typically prevalent at a given historical and cultural moment. Struggles against political domination, where social violence is prescribed according to such categories as ethnicity, religion, or caste, were prevalent in feudal societies. Struggles against economic exploitation, where people are compelled to labour for the enrichment of others, have been prevalent for much of the past two centuries in industrialized societies. Domination and exploitation are widely recognized as forms of oppression in contemporary Western societies.
Resistance to political domination and economic exploitation is clearly important, but Foucault argues that subjection is becoming the central form of oppression in Western societies. To understand subjection, many continuing educators will have to set aside some of their assumptions about human nature. In Western cultures, we typically assume that individuality is a natural and universal condition of humanity. Each human being is presumed to possess an existential core, known by terms such as self, soul, ego, or personality; despite processes of maturation, this existential core is presumed to be relatively unitary and stable. Recently, however, scholars in the fields of psychological anthropology (Carrithers, Collins, & Lukes, 1985;Ewing, 1990;Fienup-Riordan, 1986;Shweder & Levine, 1984;Spiro, 1993;Stairs, 1992;Stairs & Wenzel, 1992;Whittaker, 1992), historical sociology (Abercrombie, Hill, & Turner, 1986;Corrigan & Sayer, 1985;Elias, 1978Elias, , 1991Macfarlane, 1978;van Krieken, 1989van Krieken, , 1990, and postmodern philosophy (Flax, 1987(Flax, , 1990Henriques et al., 1984;Jameson, 1985;Macdonald, 1991;Peters & Marshall, 1993;Rosenau, 1992) have argued that individualized patterns of human subjectivity are historically and culturally specific.
Comparative ethnographies of the self in Western and non-Western cultures have discovered substantially different patterns of individuality, and understandings of individuality, in different cultures. Histories of European culture and personality structures suggest that contemporary forms of individuality in Europe contrast sharply with those prominent in feudal times. Postmodern theorists of identity argue that individuality was an ideological fiction of modern life in capitalist societies. Geertz suggests that the Western conception of the person as a bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment, and action organized into a distinctive whole and set contrastively both against other such wholes and against a social and natural background is, however incorrigible it may seem to us, a rather peculiar idea within the context of the world's cultures. (quoted in Shweder & Levine, 1984, p. 167) Assumptions about the nature of human individuality are central to adult education practice. Rather than accept contemporary understandings of individuality as natural and universal, adult educators need to problematize such understandings and then deconstruct the processes through which particular patterns of individuality emerge.
If individuality is not a natural and universal component of human nature, then the processes through which individuality is produced are socially and politically important. Foucault conceptualizes subjection as a form of power relations through which individuality is produced, disciplined, and regulated. He writes: This form of power applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him. It is a form of power which makes individuals subjects. (1982, p. 781) In becoming subjects, human beings become individuals, characterized by seemingly objective properties that apparently inhere to their individuality.
Subjection is a difficult process to recognize, because we have all been deeply inculcated with a sense of our own individuality. Human beings' physiological individuality tends to obscure our inherent sociality. Just as with other human characteristics, particular forms of individuality are socially constructed.
The individual is not to be conceived as a sort of elementary nucleus, a primitive atom, a multiple and inert material on which power comes to fasten or against which it happens to strike, and in so doing subdues or crushes individuals. In fact, it is already one of the prime effects of power that certain bodies, certain gestures, certain discourses, certain desires, come to be identified and constituted as individuals. (Foucault, 1986a, p. 234) Subjection is a process through which human beings become objectively knowable to others through distinctive biographies and personal characteristics, and subjectively knowable to themselves through distinctive, habituated patterns of consciousness and practice.
Through the concept of subjection, Foucault explains how patterns of oppression can become internalized to human personality structures. Such internalization, however, does not exclude the possibility of resistance.
Foucault provides examples of contemporary struggles against forms of subjection: "opposition to the power of men over women, of parents over children, of psychiatry over the mentally ill, of medicine over the population, of administration over the ways people live" (1982, p. 780). While clearly diverse, such struggles are all decentralized battles-revolving around the question "Who are we?"-to establish individual and collective identities beyond those prescribed by contemporary discourses and institutions.
For university continuing educators in Canada, recognizing that patterns of oppression are being transformed is both necessary and troubling. It is necessary because if we lose touch with how oppression is being accomplished, we risk losing relevance as social activists and becoming complicit actors in the subjection of ourselves and our learners. It is troubling because while we have worked diligently against political domination and economic exploitation, we have done little in the struggle against the regulating and disciplining of identities. Much of mainstream continuing education explicitly subjects people to identities based upon arbitrary categories such as needs, abilities, and credentials; much of activist continuing education focuses on combating explicitly coercive forms of oppression, thereby remaining silent about the processes through which people come to participate willingly in oppressive forms of social relations. These changing patterns of oppression help explain why traditional forms of social activism through university continuing education have not recently been particularly effective nor incited mass support or action among disadvantaged groups.

POWER
To move beyond old forms of social activism, it is necessary to understand not only how patterns of oppression are changing, but also how such oppression becomes part of daily lives through the material experience of power relations. If oppression is a decentred and historically specific pattern of social struggles, then traditional concepts of power must be revised. Foucault makes three fundamental criticisms of conventional notions of power. First, he argues that "power is not something that is acquired, seized or shared, something that one holds or allows to slip away" (1978, p. 94). Power is not a thing or a resource, but rather a process that inheres to social relations. Since "power itself does not exist," one must seek to understand power as an aspect or a process of social relations (Foucault, 1982, p. 786).
Second, Foucault rejects the notion that power is a repressive or negative force: "We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it excludes, it represses, it censors, it abstracts, it masks, it conceals" (1977, p. 194). Instead, Foucault argues: What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is quite simply the fact that it doesn't weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. It needs to be considered as a productive network which runs through the entire social body, much more than as a negative instance whose function is repression. (1980, p. 119) Rather than understand power as the capacity to prevent people from acting or thinking, Foucault describes power as an incitement to certain ways of acting and thinking.
Third, Foucault insists that power cannot be understood in terms of the conscious intentions of those who supposedly possess it. He writes: "There is no power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives. But this does not mean that it results from the choice or decision of an individual subject" (1978, p. 95). Urging us to focus on the processes and practices through which power functions, rather than on the subjective intentions of the powerful, Foucault writes: Let us not, therefore, ask why certain people want to dominate, what they seek, what is their overall strategy. Let us ask, instead, how things work at the level of on-going subjugation, at the level of those continuous and uninterrupted processes which subject our bodies, govern our gestures, dictate our behaviours, etc. (1986a, p. 233) Power, like oppression, should be understood as a decentred process, rather than as a top-down structure.
If power is not a material resource, a repressive force, nor a conscious strategy, then how are we to understand power relations? Foucault argues: The exercise of power is not violence; nor is it a consent which, implicitly, is renewable. It is a total structure of actions brought to bear upon possible actions; it incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult; in the extreme it constrains or forbids absolutely; it is nevertheless always a way of acting upon an acting subject or acting subjects by virtue of their acting or being capable of action. A set of actions upon other actions. (1982, p. 789) In general terms, power refers to processes that enable or restrict people's capacities for particular forms of social practice or consciousness. Power inheres in all social relations, because all relations promote or discourage alternative forms of practice or consciousness.
This conceptualization of power demands that the study of oppression transcend the realm of formal political and legal institutions. Foucault suggests that the 16th-century notion of "government" did not refer only to political structures or the management of states; rather, it designated the way in which the conduct of individuals or groups might be directed: the government of children, of souls, of communities, of families, of the sick. It did not only cover the legitimately constituted forms of political or economic subjection but also modes of action, more or less considered or calculated, which were destined to act upon the possibilities of action of other people. To govern, in this sense, is to structure the possible field of action of others. (1982, p. 790) This conceptualization of power requires a broad and flexible view of what constitutes politically significant social relations.
Foucault states that "power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere" (1978, p. 93). He continues, saying, "Relations of power are not in a position of exteriority with respect to other types of relations (economic processes, knowledge relationships, sexual relations), but are imminent in the latter" (1978, p. 94). The notion that there are forms of social relations beyond the realm of power is an illusion. Foucault writes: Power relations are rooted deep in the social nexus, not reconstituted "above" society as a supplementary structure whose radical effacement one could perhaps dream of. In any case, to live in society is to live in such a way that action upon other actions is possible-and in fact ongoing. A society without power relations can only be an abstraction. (1982, p. 791) The recognition that power inheres to all social relations does not necessarily imply that all forms of social relations are ethically comparable. It does mean, however, that rather than searching for a universal pattern in which life should be lived, social activists should look for practical ways to transform existing power relations.
For university continuing educators in Canada, the conceptualization of power as a process that enables or restricts people's capacities for social practice and consciousness places power relations at the heart of educational practices. Whether implicitly or explicitly, all adult education is about structuring people's fields of possible thought and activity. By definition then, all adult education carries a significant social responsibility. This conceptualization of power also demands both realism and sensitivity to context from continuing educators working for social change. While abstract, utopian visions of social change can be useful motivating forces, they are poor guides to actual educational practice. Continuing educators must work from the base of existing patterns of power relations and seek to transform such relations. An important corollary of the need to base social activism on existing realities and attainable goals is the recognition that forms of activism must be appropriate to the historical and cultural context in which they are practised. There can be no singular "pedagogy of the oppressed" (Freire, 1970) or "community development process" (Cary, 1970); rather, in each setting, educators must work with others to creatively fashion forms of contextually appropriate social activism.

CONCLUSION: CONTINUING EDUCATORS AND SOCIAL STRUGGLE
In the introduction, it was suggested that reconceptualizing notions of oppression and power would help university continuing educators in Canada to construct more realistic and vigorous forms of social activism. The interpretation of Foucault in this article implies that our conventional vision of social struggle simply does not fit the way that power and oppression are organized in contemporary Western societies. Nikolas Rose and Peter Miller suggest that the nature of political power has fundamentally changed. They write: The political vocabulary structured by oppositions between state and civil society, public and private, government and the market, coercion and consent, sovereignty and autonomy and the like, does not adequately characterize the diverse ways in which rule is exercised in advanced liberal democracies. Political power is exercised today through a profusion of shifting alliances between diverse authorities in projects to govern a multitude of facets of economic activity, social life and individual conduct. Power is not so much a matter of imposing constraints upon citizens as of "making up" citizens capable of bearing a kind of regulated freedom. Personal autonomy is not the antithesis of political power, but a key term in its exercise, the more so because most individuals are not merely the subjects of power but play a part in its operations. (1992, p. 174) While political domination and economic exploitation continue to exist, particularly in the Third World, oppression in countries such as Canada has become less of an explicitly coercive project than a subtle structure of experiences through which human beings take on the capacity and the desire to govern themselves.
If oppression in contemporary Western societies is about tying people to certain patterns of identity, then university continuing education is heavily implicated in such oppression. First, many of our activities are explicitly directed towards helping people discover who they are, what their needs are, and how they can successfully participate in existing social structures. The conservative implications of such forms of adult education have been documented by writers such as Collins (1991), Edwards (1991), and Keddie (1980). Second, many of our practitioners who are explicitly committed to social change are engaged in patterns of practice that, while confronting domination and exploitation, at the same time actually support more subtle processes of subjection. The conservative implications of supposedly radical adult education have not been adequately examined.
While recognizing the changing nature of oppression may lead continuing educators to despair of the field's overall acquiescence, it should also provoke us to construct creative forms of activist practice. Oppression and power are everywhere, so resistance is possible from everywhere. Foucault argues: Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power. Should it be said that one is always "inside" power, there is no "escaping" it, there is no absolute outside where it is concerned, because one is subject to the law in any case? . . . This would be to misunderstand the strictly relational character of power relationships. Their existence depends on a multiplicity of points of resistance: these play the role of adversary, target, support, or handle in power relations. These points of resistance are present everywhere in the power network. Hence there is no single locus of great Refusal, no soul of revolt, source of all rebellions, or pure law of the revolutionary. Instead there is a plurality of resistances, each of them a special case: resistances that are possible, necessary, improbable; others that are spontaneous, savage, solitary, concerted, rampant, or violent; still others that are quick to compromise, interested, or sacrificial. (1978, p. 95) Although all social relations involve power, Foucault does not counsel social activists to throw up their hands in relativistic despair. Since power and oppression are fundamentally decentred processes, struggles of resistance are necessarily plural and diffuse.
Rather than advising revolution against such abstractions as the state, or capitalism, Foucault urges a multitude of resistances against the regulation of who we are. He writes: Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are but to refuse what we are. We have to imagine and to build up what we could be to get rid of this kind of political "double bind" which is the simultaneous individualization and totalization of modern power structures. The conclusion would be that the political, ethical, social, philosophical problem of our days is not to try to liberate the individual from the state and from the state's institutions but to liberate us both from the state and from the type of individualization which is linked to the state. We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed on us for several centuries. (1982, p. 785) Shifting to new forms of social activism will be difficult for continuing educators. Much of our conventional wisdom urges us to empower individuals to escape the oppressive experiences of domination or exploitation; some of our radical practitioners encourage us to transform social structures to more adequately suit the needs of individuals. We know little of how to cultivate patterns of human personality that can resist the disciplining and regulating of individuality that are at the heart of contemporary forms of power. Changing ourselves and our practices will be difficult, but without such change we cannot hope to remain relevant for postmodern social struggles. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to recognize the contributions of several colleagues to this article. Derek Smith and Alan Hunt of Carleton University encouraged my reading of Foucault. Numerous colleagues at the University of Saskatchewan Extension Division helped me begin to understand the complex field of university continuing education. The anonymous reviewers from the CJUCE provided helpful suggestions on the initial version of this article.