CULTURAL
DISCOURSES
A DISCOURSE CAN BE
DEFINED AS “A CONCEPTUAL MODEL THAT MAPS THE WORLD” OR “A KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM
WHICH INFORMS INSTITUTIONALISED TECHNOLOGIES OF POWER.”
…
EVERY CULTURE IS SITUATED IN A FRAME
OF REFERENCE THAT IT TAKES FOR GRANTED [MODELS THAT MAP THE WORLD]
=== SOCIOLOGISTS CALL THIS CULTURAL MAPPING PROCESS === “DISCOURSES”
****DISCOURSE - IS
A SET OF TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND A WAY OF TALKING ABOUT THOSE TOPICS THAT IS
CONTINUED OVER TIME BY A NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE CERTAIN INTERESTS IN COMMON.
THROUGH DISCOURSE, THE PARTICIPANTS [IN A CULTURE] COME TO HAVE A
SHARED "KNOWLEDGE" ABOUT THE WORLD.
SOCIOLOGISTS
TEND TO AGREE THAT CULTURAL DISCOURSE PROVIDES THE CONCEPTUAL MODELS FOR PEOPLE AROUND
WHICH THEY MAP THE WORLD (GOLDBERG, 1993; FOUCAULT,
1980).
IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, A DISCOURSE IS
CONSIDERED TO BE AN INSTITUTIONALIZED WAY OF THINKING, A SOCIAL BOUNDARY
DEFINING WHAT CAN BE SAID ABOUT A SPECIFIC TOPIC, OR, AS JUDITH BUTLER PUTS
IT, "THE LIMITS OF ACCEPTABLE SPEECH" - OR POSSIBLE TRUTH.
DISCOURSES ARE
SEEN TO AFFECT OUR VIEWS ON ALL THINGS; IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO ESCAPE DISCOURSE.
FOR EXAMPLE, TWO NOTABLY DISTINCT DISCOURSES CAN BE USED ABOUT VARIOUS GUERRILLA
MOVEMENTS DESCRIBING THEM EITHER AS "FREEDOM FIGHTERS" OR
"TERRORISTS". IN OTHER WORDS, THE CHOSEN DISCOURSE
DELIVERS THE VOCABULARY, EXPRESSIONS AND PERHAPS ALSO THE STYLE NEEDED TO
COMMUNICATE. DISCOURSE IS CLOSELY LINKED TO DIFFERENT THEORIES OF
POWER AND STATE, AT LEAST AS LONG AS DEFINING DISCOURSES IS SEEN TO MEAN
DEFINING REALITY ITSELF.
Michel Foucault is often called a philosopher and a social
theorist, sometimes a historian and a literary critic, but also a
post-structuralist thinker. One can see these identities merge into a single
project, at least, if we can agree to call him "a critical historiographer
of the humanist discourses of modernity". For Foucault, the
humanist discourses of modernity are knowledge systems which inform
institutionalised technologies of power. Foucault's main interest is therefore
in the origins of the modern human sciences (psychiatry, medicine, sexuology,
etc.), the rise of their affiliated institutions (the clinic, the prison, the
asylum, etc.) and how the production of truth is governed by discursive
power regimes. The latter, however, should not be understood exclusively in
"language"-terms (cf. the attention he pays to the power-dimensions
of the ways buildings are designed). Foucault's work can be divided into three
stages: archaeology, genealogy and post-modern ethics. Note that the first two
stages involve a metaphoric reading of a particular sub-discipline of history.