In the philosophy of Michel Foucault, a dispositif or dispositive is any of the various institutional, physical, and administrative mechanisms and knowledge structures which enhance and maintain the exercise of power within the social body. The links between these elements are said to be heterogeneous since knowledge, practices, techniques, and institutions are established and reestablished in every age. It is through these links that power relations are structured.

Definition

Dispositif is translated variously as "device", "machinery", "apparatus", "construction", "formation" and "deployment". Foucault defines Dispositif in his 1977 "The Confession of the Flesh" interview, in response to question, "What is the meaning or methodological function for you of this term, apparatus (dispositif)?" The German linguist Siegfried Jäger defines Foucault's dispositif as The Danish philosopher Raffnsøe "advances the 'dispositive' (le dispositif) as a key conception in Foucault's work" and "a resourceful approach to the study of contemporary societal problems." According to Raffnsøe, "the dispositionally prescriptive level is a crucial aspect of social reality in organizational life, since it has a determining effect on what is taken for granted and considered real. Furthermore, it determines not only what is and can be considered possible but also what can even be imagined and anticipated as potentially realizable, as something one can hope for, or act to bring about". The Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben traces the trajectory of dispositif to Aristotle's oikonomia—the effective management of the household and the early Church Fathers' attempt to save the concept of the Trinity from the allegation of polytheism, as the triplicity of the God is his oikonomia. Agamben defines the apparatus/dispositif as The Italian scholar Matteo Pasquinelli criticises Agamben's genealogy with these words