Summary Of Normal Life Dean Spade

In his book, Normal Life, Dean Spade (2011), following Foucault presents an understanding of power. In referenced to the perpetrator/victim mode of power Spade (2011) highlights that there will be a wrong that needs to be rectify by punishing the individual deemed responsible for the harm (102). In this way of looking at power, the “perpetrator” is the scapegoat for systems like racism, sexism, ableism, and transphobia that are responsible for the “victims” situation (Spade, 104). In other words, a person’s situation would look different if these systems were out of the equation.
Perhaps more useful to our conversation is to situate student-teacher consensual relations within the disciplinary mode of power. Spade, writes,
The disciplinary mode of power refers to how racism, transphobia, sexism, ableism, and homophobia operate through norms that produce ideas about types of people and proper ways to be. These norms are enforced through internal and external policing and discipline. Institutional locations such as medicine, the social sciences, and
In our analysis, the improper subject would be the teacher who engages in sexual activity with his or her student(s) whereas teachers who do not cross this line would are regarded as proper. Institutions play a critical role in putting people back in line by deploying formal and informal sanctions, but social or internal mechanism that shame or approve of a people’s actions also play a major role (Spade, 2011). Further, Spade (2011) reminds us that violence is central in ensuring this task. In our analysis, a teacher who engages in sexual activity might lose his or her job. Further, this teacher might be shame publicly by the media. And the “justice” system could place this person in prison to whip him or her back into