Discourse Theory: Understanding Representations and Power

1. Lecture GEOG 335 Fall 2007 October 23, 2007 Joe Hannah

2. Discourse Theory A Quick Introduction

3. I. Knowledge • Situated. • Contested. • Contingent.

4. Knowledge Symbolizing How do we represent information to ourselves and others? Text? Images? Language! ME Who am I? Culture: What is important? What is meaningful? “Situatedness” Paradigms How we understand our environment and our place in it. Data What data do we need to gather? In what form? Using what methodology? Data can never be unbiased!! Inquiry What do we understand and what do we need to understand? What do we focus on? What questions do we ask?

5. II. Representation • A set of practices by which meanings are constituted and communicated. • Such representational practices produce and circulate meanings among members of social groups and these meanings can be defined as culture. Such shared meanings are based on representations of the world.

6. Representation (continued) • Representations not only reflect reality, but they help to constitute reality. People make sense of their worlds and are positioned within social worlds through representations. • Some representations are imposed on them from the outside, but these are also contested by representations generated from within the culture. Thus imagined geographies are contested by “rival” geographies. Duncan, Jim. (2000) “Representation.” Dictionary of Human Geography. R.J. Johnston, et. al. eds.

7. III. What is “Discourse” • “…groups of statements which structure the way a thing is thought, and the way we act on the basis of that thinking. • “In other words, discourse is a particular knowledge about the world that shapes how the world is understood and how things are done in it.” (Rose, p. 136)

8. Another way to look at discourse • Discourse is a set of rules that • allow us to think, talk and act in particular ways, • and simultaneously prevent us from thinking, talking, and acting in others. e.g., “POVERTY”

9. Another way to look at discourse (cont.) • No one dictates these rules. They are formed and reinforced through social practices. • “…discourse is seen as being socially produced, not produced by individuals.” (Rose, p. 138) • These rules are (for the most part) invisible to us; that is, they are “taken-for-granted.”

10. Intertextuality • “… the meanings of any one discursive image or text depend not only on that one image or text, but also on meanings carried by other images and texts.” • e.g., pictures of prostitutes in Rose.

11. Create Recreate • Discourses are created through social mechanisms – through images, texts, actions, etc.; • In turn, these images, texts, actions, etc., reinforce, re-validate, and recreate the discourse, itself.

12. Many, many discourses • We are subjected to many interlocking and overlapping discourses. For instance, as students we are implicated in and must make sense discourses on: • Academia/scholarship • Governmentality (since this is a state school) • Activism/idealism • Adolescence/young adulthood • Drinking/drugs • Careerism • Capitalism • MORE… (Can you list some to do with Development?)

13. Knowledge • Therefore, knowledge (as we’ve discussed before) is socially constructed. • But is is constructed in specific ways, along the lines of discursive formations (or, “the ways meanings are connected together in a particular discourse”). • Not ALL forms of knowledge are accepted or acceptable in a discourse.

14. “Regimes of Truth” • Only certain claims to truth will be considered legitimate. (Astrology? Or astronomy?) • “The particular grounds on which truth is claimed – and these shift historically – constitute what Foucault called a regime of truth.” (Rose, p. 137)

15. Discourse as Discipline • Discourse is a form of Discipline • It governs what can and cannot legitimately be said about a subject • It constrains representation, while simultaneously being reconstructed through representation • It allows particular forms of knowledge while erasing others

16. Power & Knowledge • So power is essential in creating knowledge. • “…all knowledge is discursive and all discourse is saturated with power.” (Rose, p. 138) • In this sense, power is not conceived of as something held by one person or institution. Power is diffuse – it permeates all discourse.

17. Discourse Analysis • Concerned with identifying an authoritative account (of something); • Because discourses are often contested, discourse analysis often contrasts different discursive formations to highlight social conflict and power relations; • “Discourses are articulated through a huge range of images, texts and practices… and any and all of these are legitimate sources for discourse analysis.”

18. Some Key Terms • Power/knowledge • Truth claims • Authority • Legitimacy • Absences/Erasures • Surveillance/Discipline/Self-discipline