Totalitarian institutions and human engineering: A sociological reading

Abstract

The topic of total institutions serves as a fundamental entry point for understanding the complex relationship between power and the self within closed spaces. These institutions (from psychiatric hospitals to prisons and barracks) do not merely shelter individuals or regulate their behavior; they engage in a deeper act of reshaping them in a way that dissolves their individual privacy within a strict collective logic. From the very first moment, the newcomer is stripped of their name and assigned a number, and a uniform is imposed upon them. These rituals are not merely organizational procedures, but rather an announcement of a new "social birth," in which the individual leaves behind everything that connected them to the outside world.
Based on the above, we pose the central question here : How does the totalitarian institution transform into a laboratory for the re-production of humans according to its own logic? And does it succeed in completely erasing individual identity, or do individuals, even in the most extreme moments of subjugation, devise small strategies of resistance that preserve the spark of their original self.

Received Date: July 19, 2025                    

Accepted Date: August 11, 2025                  

Published Date: August 30, 2025

Available Online at https://www.ijsrisjournal.com/index.php/ojsfiles/article/view/433