Foucaldian Discourse Analysis

Michel Foucault developed a complex and nuanced theory of discourse in a series of books that includes The History of Sexuality (1998) and The Archeology of Knowledge (2002). Although his work covered a broad array of empirical topics and substantial shifts in method, three concepts recur throughout his work and provide some coherence to his varied interests: power, knowledge, and subjectivity. Understanding Foucauldian discourse analysis begins with an understanding of Foucault’s conceptualization of these three concepts and their relationship.

Foucault defines discourses, or discursive formations, as bodies of knowledge that form the objects of which they speak. In other words, discourses do not simply describe the social world; they constitute it by bringing certain phenomena into being through the way in which they categorize and make sense of an otherwise meaningless reality. The nature of the [Page 403]discursive formation in place at any point in time is the source of the relations of power (and resistance), the social objects and identities, and the possibilities for speaking and acting that exist at any point in time.

Each discourse is defined by a set of rules or principles—the “rules of formation”—that lead to the appearance of particular objects that make up recognizable social worlds. Discourse lays down the “conditions of possibility” that determine what can be said, by whom, and when. No statement occurs accidentally, and the task for the discourse analyst is to analyze how and why one particular statement appeared rather than another.

For Foucault, discourse—or at least the knowledge that it instantiates—is inseparable from power. Power is embedded in knowledge, and any knowledge system constitutes a system of power, as succinctly summarized in his “power/knowledge” couplet. In constructing the available identities, ideas, and social objects, the context of power is formed. Power, in turn, brings into being new forms of knowledge and produces new social objects.

Power is not something connected to agents but represents a complex web of relations determined by systems of knowledge constituted in discourse. It is thus the discursive context, rather than the subjectivity of any individual actor, that influences the nature of political strategy. In fact, for Foucault, the notion of agents acting purposefully in some way not determined by the discourse is antithetical.

In determining the conditions of possibility in this way, discourse “disciplines” subjects in that actors are known—and know themselves—only within the confines of a particular discursive context. Thus, discourse shapes individuals’ subjectivity. Foucault decenters the subject: There is no essence or true subject but only a power/knowledge system that constituted the subjectivities of the individuals embedded within it.

Foucault’s work has had a tremendous influence on social studies and, in particular, on understandings of the relation between discourse and power. At the same time, his empirical method is highly idiosyncratic and has found only limited footing as yet beyond his own work at an empirical level. However, his work is highly influential and stands to make an even more significant contribution to social science in the future.