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.”

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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.