It is argued that the question of social welfare is a key, if often overlooked, component in the construction of power relations and identities in later life that can take its place next to debates on bioethics and consumer lifestyle. Foucault's (1977) claim, that identities are kept in place through the deployment of integrated systems of power and knowledge and a routine operation of surveillance and assessment, is critically examined in this context. Trends in social welfare in the United Kingdom are used as a case example that sheds light on wider contemporary issues associated with old age. Finally, implications for the creation of particular narratives about later life are discussed and grounded through Foucault's (1988) notion of "technologies of self."

We conclude that marginalization results in inadequate redress to issues of violence and power that may manifest against the older person, and which leads to feelings of vulnerability. There are important implications for helping health professionals, especially nurses, for understanding the policy, theory and practice. The need for empirical research in this difficult area is paramount.

• Summary: This article explores relations of power in social work using insights drawn from the critical ‘toolkit’ emanating from work of French philosopher, Michel Foucault. The article discusses the relationship between Foucault’s conceptual tools of ‘knowledge and power’, the emergence of ‘the modern subject’ and the concept of ‘governmentality’. Despite ongoing pressures, professional expertise persists as a core element of neo-liberal government in the management of the population. We use a Foucauldian perspective to explore two issues central to contemporary practice: surveillance and discretion that epitomise dualism of power relations. On the one hand, surveillance brings with it a potentially problematic process especially in context of top down managerial power; yet, on the other hand, discretion is much more focused on what Foucault (1977) calls ‘the microphysics of power’ with opportunities for ‘resistance’ from the bottom up. • Findings: Professional expertise creates a paradox where surveillance and discretion operate within similar social space as the expression of power relations that encompass the matrix of users, carers and social workers. On one hand, surveillance restricts practice however; on the other, complexity opens the space for resistance and new formulations of power relations. • Applications : Exposing social work activity to a critical stance enables the exploration of relations of power identifying how commitments such as empowerment and anti-oppressive practice become detached from their original radical and humanitarian moorings to feature now as components of oppressive discourses they might once have challenged.

Health and welfare have emerged as pivotal drivers used to position the identities that older people adopt in contemporary Western societies. Both contain continually changing technologies that function to mediate relations between older people and care professionals. However, they also represent an increase in professional control that can be exerted on lifestyles in old age, and thus, the wider social meanings associated with that part of the life course. The article presents a theoretical analysis of gerontology based on a critical reading of the work of Michel Foucault. It identifies the interrelationship between managerialism and older people in terms of a conceptual toolkit of (a) "medical power," and (b) "assessment," "surveillance," and "resistance"; the key point is that they are relevant in theorizing power relations between health and welfare professionals and user groups such as older people.

No abstract