What does Foucault say about discourse?

Discourse, as defined by Foucault, refers to: ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledges and relations between them. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning.

What is discourse Foucault example?

Foucault describes discourse as the language, ideas and values held by disciplines, institutions and society. For example, the invasion of Afghanistan was not an unalterable outcome of 9/11; rather it was an idea that won out against other possibilities.

What is the theory of discourse?

Discourse theory proposes that in our daily activities the way we speak and write is shaped by the structures of power in our society, and that because our society is defined by struggle and conflict our discourses reflect and create conflicts.

What is Foucault’s theory?

Foucault’s theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969).

How does Foucault describe the power of discourse?

On Foucault’s account, power doesn’t work through a large-scale finality, a closed teleology, or a centralized organizing principle. On the contrary, power is deployed through a series of local, diffuse, and everyday practices. Accordingly, for Foucault, our discourses are manifestations and enactments of an omnipresent discourse-power complex.

How are Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault different?

In this aspect, Foucault and Jacques Lacan’s ‘discourses’ on discourse overlap, although their focus diverge. Whereas Lacan considers discourse from the point of view of psychoanalysis and, thus, the inter-subjective setting, Foucault considers discourse from the structural point of view of institutions and power.

What did Michel Foucault mean by the term repressive?

A CCORDING TO C OMMON W ISDOM, we witness an increasing discourse of repression that develops hand in hand with the rise of capitalism, culminating finally in the pervasive stereotype of the Victorian as “imperial prude” ( Foucault, History of Sexuality 1.3 ).

What did Michel Foucault say about censorship and sexuality?

Foucault also argues that censorship is not the primary form through which power is exercised; rather it is the incitement to speak about one’s sexuality (to experts of various sorts) in order better to regulate it. Indeed, silence itself can be read as caught up in a larger discourse about sexuality: