Page 21 - Culture and Cultural Studies

20 CULTURE AND CULTURAL STUDIES

Foucault and discursive practices

Like Derrida, Foucault (1972) argues against structuralist theories of language which
conceive of it as an autonomous, rule-governed system. He also opposes interpretative or
hermeneutic methods that seek to disclose the hidden meanings of language. Foucault is
concerned with the description and analysis of the surfaces of discourse and their effects
under determinate material and historical conditions. For Foucault, discourse concerns
both language and practice. The concept refers to the regulated production of knowledge
through language which gives meaning to both material objects and social practices.
Discourse constructs, defines and produces the objects of knowledge in an intelligible
way while at the same time excluding other ways of reasoning as unintelligible. Foucault
attempts to identify the historical conditions and determining rules of the formation of
regulated ways of speaking about objects, that is, discursive practices and discursive for-
mations. He explores the circumstances under which statements are combined and regu-
lated to form and define a distinct field of knowledge/objects requiring a particular set of
concepts and delimiting a specific ‘regime of truth’ (i.e. what counts as truth).
For Foucault, discourse regulates not only what can be said under determinate social
and cultural conditions but also who can speak, when and where. Consequently, much of
his work is concerned with the historical investigation of power and the production of
subjects through that power. Foucault does not formulate power as a centralized con-
straining force; rather, power is dispersed through all levels of a social formation and is
productive of social relations and identities (i.e. generative).
Foucault conceives of the subject as radically historized, that is, persons are wholly and
only the product of history. He explores the genealogy of the body as a site of disciplinary
practices that bring subjects into being. Such practices are the consequences of specific
historical discourses of crime, punishment, medicine, science and sexuality. Thus,
Foucault (1973) analyses statements about madness which give us knowledge about it, the
rules that prescribe what is ‘sayable’ or ‘thinkable’ about madness, subjects who personify
madness, and the practices within institutions that deal with madness (see Chapter 3).

Anti-essentialism

Perhaps the most significant influence of poststructuralism within cultural studies is its
anti-essentialism. Essentialism assumes that words have stable referents and that social
categories reflect an essential underlying identity. By this token there would be stable
truths to be found and an essence of, for example, femininity or black identity. However,
for poststructuralism there can be no truths, subjects or identities outside of language.
Further, this is a language that does not have stable referents and is therefore unable to
represent fixed truths or identities. In this sense, femininity or black identity are not fixed
universal things but descriptions in language which through social convention come to
be ‘what counts as truth’ (i.e. the temporary stabilization of meaning).

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