Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

The work of the French social philosopher Michel Foucault provides one of the theoretical frameworks often used to inform and shape studies employing discourse analysis. Foucauldian-influenced discourse analysis has gained increasing prominence in qualitative research since the late 20th century. Studies drawing on this approach have focused on diverse substantive areas, ranging from urban and business studies to health related areas such as nursing and occupational therapy. Foucauldian discourse analysis offers the potential to challenge ways of thinking about aspects of reality that have come to be viewed as being natural or normal and therefore tend to be taken for granted. It can enable us to explore how things have come to be the way they are, how it is that they remain that way, and how else they might have been or could be. This entry first examines Foucault's concept of discourse with its emphasis on the nexus between power and knowledge. It then discusses how this approach to discourse analysis might be operationalized, including an exploration of what might constitute data for a Foucauldian-influenced discourse analysis. Issues arising from the use of such an approach are raised, along with suggestions as to how some of them might be addressed.

The terms discourse and discourse analysis do not have single, absolute definitions because understandings of discourse and discourse analysis are derived from different disciplinary and theoretical traditions. Whatever the theoretical frame that is informing the understandings of discourse will also inform and shape the understanding of discourse analysis that is in use. Consequently, like other qualitative analytical approaches, discourse analysis is not a unified, unitary approach. However, although the principles of analysis may differ according to the approach to discourse analysis that is adopted, it is not a case of anything goes in discourse analysis. The theoretical premises on which the research being reported has drawn need to be clearly articulated.

In one sense the term Foucauldian discourse analysis could be considered something of a misnomer in [Page 356]that Foucault did not develop a method for doing discourse analysis per se; in fact, he actively resisted doing so. Indeed, rather than specifying one way of doing discourse analysis, it is Foucault's theoretical work that provides us with a number of understandings that underpin both the framing and the conducting of research using this approach, including the type of question(s) or issue(s) being explored, as well as the way in which data are thought about and analyzed. Drawing on a metaphor Foucault used, the understandings derived from his work provide a toolbox or set of tools that can be used to shape the discursive analysis undertaken.

Foucault challenged the idea that knowledge is objective and value-free, inevitably progressive, and universal. Instead, he argued for an inextricable link between power and knowledge and used his concept of discourse to explore this power-knowledge nexus. Put simply, drawing on Foucauldian understandings, discourse refers to ways of thinking and speaking about aspects of reality. Discourses operate to order reality in certain ways. At any point in time, there are a number of possible discursive frames for thinking, writing, and speaking about aspects of reality. However, as a consequence of the effect of power relations, not all discourses are afforded equal presence or equal authority. Foucault described power as a network or a web that enables certain knowledge(s) to be produced and known. Somewhat paradoxically, such power can also constrain what it is possible to know in certain situations. Thus, in Foucault's analysis, power is a productive concept; it is not simply repressive. Nor is power a hierarchical concept, but rather it is an effect of sociohistoric processes in that knowledge underpinning a discourse can be used by proponents of that discourse both to claim authority and presence in certain settings and to exclude other possible discursive framings or ways of viewing those settings. Thus, while discursive frameworks order reality in a particular way, rendering it visible and understandable, they may also constrain or even exclude the production of understandings and knowledge that could offer alternative views of that reality. Thus, Foucauldian-influenced discourse analysis offers the possibility of illuminating the effects of power Foucault posited as being exercised from innumerable points within a given context, and this possibility is one of the attractions of the approach in qualitative research.

...