Page 136 - Cultural Theory

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••• Foucault: Interpretive Analysis and the Social •••

As Rouse (1994) has pointed out, an examination of the relationship between
power and knowledge is central to interpreting and understanding social phenom-
ena via a Foucauldian framework. One of the consequences of power and knowledge
is that rather than the focus on the explicit use of a particular technique of knowl-
edge by someone in power to cause a certain effect, attention is drawn to the reflex-
ive relationship between both elements. This leads to a concern with:

the epistemic context within which those bodies of knowledge become intelligible
and authoritative. How statements were organised thematically, which of those
statements counted as serious, who was empowered to speak seriously, and what
questions and procedures were relevant to assess the credibility of those state-
ments that were taken seriously ... The types of objects in their domains were not
already demarcated, but came into existence only contemporaneous with the dis-
cursive formations that made it possible to talk about them.
(ibid.: 93)

So, just as knowledge shapes what action is possible and what power is exercised, those
actions also shape the creation of new knowledge and what is thereby given credence.
Over time, legitimate ‘domains’ are established which both define what is real and what
can be done about it. Other possible interpretations are simultaneously discounted and
delegitimized. The result is a view and mode of practice in which power and knowledge
support each other. These domains not only sustain, for example, certain professional
discourses, they mould what those professions might become. This analysis of power
and knowledge emphasizes their entwinement and the processes that occur as a partic-
ular domain takes shape. It also marks a distinction between what a method for both
understanding and obtaining knowledge produces and the relationship between the
shaping of that product and the distribution of power.
How did Foucault proceed to ‘uncovering’ discourses and practices? To address
this, the chapter examines a series of analytical tools for social inquiry. First, these
relate to archaeology and genealogy as essential backdrops for understanding subjec-
tivity. The chapter then moves its focus to the construction of the modern subject in
terms of classification practices, dividing practices and self-subjectification practices.
From this it examines three categories for understanding the constitution of social
relations: the body, the individual and population. Finally, we reflect on the legacy
of Foucault for social inquiry.

Analytical Tools for Thinking

Archaeological analysis

It is through ‘historical investigation’ that scholars can understand the present.
However, when utilising historical inquiry, scholars should ‘use it, to deform it, to
make it groan and protest’ (Foucault, 1980: 54). Foucault (1972; 1977) uses his
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