Foucauldian Discourse

Analysis
 What is critical discourse analysis?
 In CDA, the notion of ‘critical’ is primarily applied to the engagement with
power relations associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. In this, it
argues against a realist, neutral and rationalist view of the world. Instead the role
is to uncloak the hidden power relations, largely constructed through language,
and to demonstrate and challenge social inequities reinforced and reproduced.
 Discourse is a contested and contestable term. James Gee (1990) uses the term
discourse (with a small ‘d’ to talk about language in use, or the way language is
used in a social context to ‘enact’ activities and identities. His work is influenced
by Michel Foucault.
 In terms of analysis, CDA takes the view that texts need to be consider in terms
of what they include but also what they omit – alternative ways of constructing
and defining the world. The critical discourse analyst’s job is not to simply read
political and social ideologies onto a text but to consider the myriad ways in
which a text could have been written and what these alternatives imply for ways
of representing the world, understanding the world and the social actions that are
determined by these ways of thinking and being.
Theory
Besides focusing on the meaning of a given discourse, the
distinguishing characteristic of this approach is its stress on
power relationships.
These are expressed through language and behavior, and the
relationship between language and power.
The method analyzes how the social world, expressed through
language, is affected by various sources of power.
This approach is close to social constructivism, as the researcher
tries to understand how our society is being shaped (or
constructed) by language, which in turn reflects existing power
relationships.
The analysis attempts to understand how individuals view the
world, and studies categorizations, personal and institutional
relationships, ideology, and politics
Kendall and Wickham outline five steps in using
"Foucauldian discourse analysis".
The first step is a simple recognition that discourse
is a body of statements that are organized in a
regular and systematic way. The subsequent four
steps are based on the identification of rules on:
How those statements are created.
What can be said (written) and what cannot.
How spaces in which new statements can be made
are created.
 Making practices material and discursive at the
same time.
A Foucauldian notion of discourse holds
that:
Discourse is a culturally constructed representation of reality, not an exact
copy
Discourse constructs knowledge and thus governs, through the production
of categories of knowledge and assemblages of texts, what it is possible to
talk about and what is not (the taken for granted rules of
inclusion/exclusion). As such, it re/produces both power and knowledge
simultaneously
Discourse defines subjects framing and positioning who it is possible to be
and what it is possible to do
Power circulates throughout society and, while hierarchised, is not simply
a top-down phenomenon
It is possible to examine regimes of power through the historicised
deconstruction of systems or regimes of meaning-making constructed in
and as discourse, that is to see how and why some categories of thinking
and lines of argument have come to be generally taken as truths while
other ways of thinking/being/doing are marginalised.
Conti….
Turning this way of understanding
discourse into method to apply to textual
analysis means asking of the text or texts
questions such as:
Conti….
What is being represented here as a truth or as a norm?
How is this constructed? What ‘evidence’ is used? What is left out?
What is fore grounded and back grounded? What is made problematic
and what is not?
What alternative meanings/explanations are ignored?
What is kept apart and what is joined together?
What interests are being mobilized and served by this and what are
not?
How has this come to be?
What identities, actions, practices are made possible and /or desirable
and/or required by this way of thinking/talking/understanding?
What are disallowed?
What is normalized and what is pathologised?
A DIVE INTO FOUCAULT’S
DISCOURSE.
Ways of constituting knowledge, together with the
social practices, forms of subjectivity and power
relations.
Discourses are more than ways of thinking and
producing meaning.
They constitute the 'nature' of the body, unconscious
and conscious mind and emotional life of the subjects
they seek to govern (Weedon, 1987, p. 108).
... a form of power that circulates in the social field and
can attach to strategies of domination as well as those
of resistance ( Diamond and Quinby, 1988, p. 185).
Conti….
 Foucault's work is imbued with an attention to history.
 Not in the traditional sense of the word but in attending to what he
has variously termed the 'archaeology'( studying human history) or
'genealogy' (studying family history) of knowledge production.
 That is, he looks at the continuities and discontinuities between
“epistemes” (taken by Foucault to mean the knowledge systems
which primarily informed the thinking during certain periods of
history: a different one being said to dominate each
epistemological age), and the social context in which certain
knowledge and practices emerged as permissible and desirable or
changed.
In his view knowledge is inextricably( can’t untie or separate)
connected to power, such that they are often written as
power/knowledge.
Conti….
 Foucault's conceptual analysis of a major shift in (western) cultural practices,
from 'sovereign power' to 'disciplinary power', is a good example of his method of
genealogy.  sovereign power:
 Sovereign power involves obedience to the law of the king or central authority
figure. Foucault argues that 'disciplinary power' gradually took over from
'sovereign power' in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even now, however,
remnants of sovereign power still remain in tension with disciplinary power.
Disciplinary power: Discipline is a mechanism of power which regulates the
behavior of individuals in the social body. This is done by regulating the
organization of space (architecture etc.), of time (timetables) and people's activity
and behavior (drills, posture, movement). It is enforced with the aid of complex
systems of surveillance. Foucault emphasizes that power is not discipline, rather
discipline is simply one way in which power can be exercised. He also uses the
term 'disciplinary society', discussing its history and the origins and disciplinary
institutions such as prisons, hospitals, asylums, schools and army barracks.
Foucault also specifies that when he speaks of a 'disciplinary society' he does not
mean a 'disciplined society'.
Power
Foucault argues a number of points in relation to power
and offers definitions that are directly opposed to more
traditional liberal and Marxist theories of power.
definitions power is not a thing but a relation power is
not simply repressive but it is productive power is not
simply a property of the State. Power is not something
that is exclusively localized in government and the
State (which is not a universal essence). Rather, power
is exercised throughout the social body. power operates
at the most micro levels of social relations. Power is
omnipresent at every level of the social body. the
exercise of power is strategic and war-like.
The Order of Discourse
Foucault argues though, in The Order of Discourse, that the 'will
to truth' is the major system of exclusion that forges discourse
and which 'tends to exert a sort of pressure and something like a
power of constraint on other discourses', and goes on further to
ask the question 'what is at stake in the will to truth, in the will
to utter this 'true' discourse, if not desire and power?' (1970,
cited in Shapiro 1984, p. 113-4).  Thus, there are both
discourses that constrain the production of knowledge, dissent
and difference and some that enable 'new' knowledges and
difference(s). The questions that arise, are to do with how some
discourses maintain their authority, how some 'voices' get heard
whilst others are silenced, who benefits and how - that is,
questions addressing issues of power/ empowerment/
disempowerment.
THANKS