Discursive Theory Research Articles

Constituting gender, locating the body

The ontology of the body has been an ongoing object of discussion within various contexts, in particular those concerning the corporeal and its relation to gender or culture. To date, there are two main schools of thought concerning body and gender relations that posit the body and its gender as distinct, suggesting the autonomy of the body and conversely asserting that the body is always already a mark of culture. In this regard, this paper discusses these two schools of thoughts through a close examination of texts selected from three main collections – The Body: Classic and Contemporary Readings, Body and Flesh: A Philosophical Reader and The Body Reader: Essential Social and Cultural Readings. The critical reading of these selected texts forms part of a large body of research that informs the development of a critical framework for reading images of the gendered body. Although the texts examined in this paper are limited to the above sources, it is sufficient to illustrate that there is a consistent pattern of argument that constitutes the two lines of thought. I include reference to Judith Butler's ideas concerning the body as a discursive construct and Foucault's theory of power relations in the context of formulating the idea of the body, discourses pertinent to the corporeal and its enculturation. On the whole, this paper aims to initiate a comparative reading of the two lines of argument concerning the body and its gendering in order to propose the body as an open text rather than enforcing a resolution that would either privilege the body as autonomous to culture or the purely textual body devoid of its flesh.

Justifying the right to justification

The work of Rainer Forst constitutes the third generation of the Habermasian School. In Das Recht auf Rechtfertigung [The right to justification] (2007) Forst develops a constructivist approach to justice in a serious effort to find a systematic basis for ‘critical theory’. In this article the relevant arguments of this approach are critically analysed. The position developed in the work of Forst appears to be characterized by a fundamental ambiguity because it oscillates between two irreconcilable points. On the one hand Forst seems to admit the necessity of something like the ‘unconditionality of moral law’ presupposing a kind of Kantian transcendentalism beyond constructivism. But on the other hand, he turns back to a more Habermasian constructivist or proceduralist theory. The ambiguity implicit in Forst’s philosophy is that it does not find a compromise between these two approaches to discursive theory so it fluctuates between them, needing the logical support of both poles.

As formações discursivas jurídicas: uma questão polêmica

Este artigo tem como propósito apresentar uma análise de enunciados de juristas que opinam na mídia, em sites da área jurídica, a respeito do emprego de expressões rebuscadas pelos operadores do Direito. Foram consideradas tanto as opiniões de juristas, tais como advogado, juiz, oficial de justiça, como a opinião de um leigo. Temos como propósito dialogar com a teoria discursiva, tomando como referencial teórico os pressupostos de Foucault, Pêcheux e Gregolin, principalmente o que eles abordam sobre o sujeito. Este artigo está organizado em duas partes. Na primeira parte, denominada Subjetividade: noções de sujeito em Foucault e Pêcheux, apresentamos o que os autores entendem por sujeito. Em seguida, na segunda parte, que denominamos A polêmica em torno do vocabulário jurídico, demonstramos como os enunciados advindos de diferentes sujeitos podem ser examinados à luz da teoria discursiva.

Values, law and “discursive theory”: how the politicization of values triggers individualization in society.

In this paper I want to claim that “politicization of values” will lead to individualization in society, in the long run, and further that this process will amount to a more personal form of legislation. Looking at the example of Turkey, I will employ Habermas’ theories of “communicative action” and “discursive law”, in order to explain how this process is taking place. My main claim is that the theory of communicative action explains how allowing values to be manifested in the public sphere leads to the rationalization of those values, and subsequently to individualization within the society.

Relativism and Human Rights - Introduction

Can human rights principles admit degrees of contextual variations? Are our cultures condemned to a formally rigid standard of universalist hegemony? This work provides an innovative contribution to the legal-philosophical understanding of human rights theory. While advancing a post-metaphysical reconstruction for the notion of human rights, it defends an original perspective on the relation between universal validity and cultural pluralism. By rejecting the challenges of relativism and classical abstract universalism, this model reinterprets discursive theory in the light of dialectical recognition and judgmental exemplarity. The result is an enriched substantive notion of universalism oriented to the safeguard of situated authenticity. Pluralistic universalism considers that, while formal filtering criteria constitute unavoidable requirements for the production of potentially valid arguments, the exemplarity of judgmental activity, in its turn, provides a pluralistic and retrospective reinterpretation for the fixity of such criteria. While speech formal standards grounds the thinnest possible presuppositions we can make as humans, the discursive exemplarity of judgments defends a notion of validity which is both contextually dependent and "subjectively universal". According to this approach, human rights principles are embedded within our linguistic argumentative practice. It is precisely from the intersubjective and dialogical relation among speakers that we come to reflect upon those same conditions of validity of our arguments. Once translated into national and regional constitutional norms, the discursive validity of exemplar judgments postulates the philosophical necessity for an ideal of legal-constitutional pluralism, challenging all those attempts trying to frustrate both horizontal (state to state) and vertical (supra-national-state-social) on-going debates on human rights.

Política, gestão e participação em Saúde: reflexão ancorada na teoria da ação comunicativa de Habermas

The article discusses the appropriation of the theory developed by Habermas to analyze health policies and management. The fundamental concepts of the discursive theory of democracy as a deliberative policy, procedural democracy, the public sphere and civil society are analyzed. An attempt is made to demonstrate that the concepts of deliberative policies are grounded on basic theoretical categories of Habermas's conception of language, namely the theory of communicative action (TCA): lifeworld and system; communicative action and discourse; the ideal speech situation. The possibility of translating the categories presented in analytical categories, such as the experiences of social participation in deliberative forums and the results for the formulation and implementation of policies and health management is discussed. The conclusion drawn is that the theoretical categories reveal great explanatory potential and analytical categories are important provided that they are mediated and contextualized.

Location, lore and language

This study addresses how language interacts with the erotic and ‘place’ (our socially understood surroundings) in an online, text-only, mostly linguistic environment to create an erotic atmosphere, and how eroticised atmosphere relates to linguistically driven sexual subject formation. Analysis focuses on extracts from a conversation in which public erotic discussions unfold between participants who are (ostensibly) men who desire men. A ‘room’ spatiality is continually performed, sometimes relying upon idealised images of ‘erotic oases’ from the offline world to build an erotic atmosphere. These offline erotic oases are places of ‘deviance’ characterised by semi-public sex (e.g. parks, public washrooms, and saunas). This type of atmosphere is contested by some participants while others embrace it. Analysis demonstrates that eroticism, spatiality, and language adapt to one another along a reformulating path. This suggests that a more nuanced understanding of language and the erotic depends on spatial investigations as much as discursive theory.

CAPITALIZING ON THE DIALECTICAL ECONOMY OF HEGEMONY

This essay offers a symptomatic reading of Laclau's On Populist Reason, arguing that his discursive theory of politics remains needlessly trapped within a restricted, recuperative economy of the signifier. As a result, Laclau is characteristically unable either to perform or to recognize precisely the sorts of rhetorical gestures that his theory specifies as paradigmatic of radical politics. The problem emerges with particular urgency and force in Laclau's encounter with the term ‘capitalism’, which in the context of this encounter comes to designate a historically distinctive discursive framework that functions as an unacknowledged precondition for, and blind spot within, the theory of hegemony.

<b>Um panorama sobre o estudo das emoções: convergências e especificidades entre a Análise do Discurso e outras áreas do conhecimento</b><br>DOI:10.5007/1984-8412.2010v7n1p88

The study of the emotions has become an object of recent and enticing research in Discourse Analysis (DA). In this research, we aim to present/show a theoretical panorama of emotions, trying to articulate among DA and another knowledge fields that have clearly influenced its theoretical formulation about the emotions, such as: Rhetoric, Phenomenology and Utterance Theory. We will show the regularities among these four knowledge fields thorough the analysis of a representative work of each one. Then, we will verify the influence and confluence of other knowledge fields in the DA theoretical formulations about the emotions, trying to observe how the DA researchers use theories that belong to the linguistic field, as well as the philosophical field, in order to create a discursive theory that takes into account the analysis of the emotions.

O discurso sobre a biblioteca escolar na rede eletrônica: sentidos a perder de vista

In that work we aimed at to study speech and electronic net to observe as subjects make to speak to senses of school library, reading and librarian in a discussion list and a weblog. We wrote down that discursive memory as condition of every saying, subject as position and speech as effect of senses among speakers, they will be the conceptual bases that will support our study. Like this, taking the postulates of the discursive theory founded by Michel Pecheux, interests to us interpret a corpus collected on-line and whose cuttings point Internet as an observatory of more plural senses, given by the confrontations among different discursive formations that they are mixed, among senses and subjects in constant movement and interaction, propitiated by the volatility of the net and for the malleableness of the discourse.

'Letting them eat cake': Narrative templates in current affairs/news journalism

This article explores the role of narrative templates in a core domain of public communication, describing a series of narrative structural patterns that underlie the scripting of news and current affairs ‘reports’. From an initial account of the nature of narrative templates and their relation to audience expectations and interpretative regimens, a number of specific story-styles that are employed recurringly in news programmes are described, examining their use and impact for capturing and maintaining audience attention. The process of telling the audience the stories it wants to hear is critiqued in terms of the capacity to subvert the quality of public communication and in terms of enduring concerns within discursive theory.

Como a diferença passa do centro à margem nos currículos: o exemplo dos PCN

O texto parte do pressuposto de que os estudos de política curricular centrados no Estado empobrecem a análise por não darem conta da relação entre estrutura e agência. Apoia-se na teoria discursiva de E. Laclau e C. Mouffe para analisar as políticas curriculares como articulações hegemônicas em torno do preenchimento do significante qualidade da educação. Centra-se na análise dos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais, especialmente os de Ciência e os Temas Transversais, tendo como foco articulações universalistas que buscam minar as demandas da diferença. Considerando que essas articulações podem ser percebidas pela análise dos textos curriculares tais como enunciados, a autora destaca duas estratégias utilizadas nos PCN: a criação de dois componentes curriculares, com a localização das demandas da diferença no menos institucionalizado deles; e as lutas por hegemonia no interior desse componente.

Práticas de linguagem como atividade social: o lingüista frente ao desafio de apreender a complexidade dos diferentes modos de habitar o mundo

Problematizamos a especificidade do trabalho do lingüista, frente ao desafio de apreender a complexidade dos diferentes modos de ser, pensar, agir e sentir no mundo. Para tal, privilegiamos as reflexões em um ponto de vista enunciativo, segundo o qual as práticas de linguagem constituem atividade social, com enfoque na centralidade da noção de gênero do discurso (BAKHTIN, 2000). Analisamos o percurso de pesquisas tematizando a produção de sentido sobre o trabalho docente. Destacamos as reconfigurações propostas pelo referencial discursivo nas fronteiras disciplinares da Lingüística, em intercâmbio constante com diferentes campos das ciências humanas.

A navegação do sujeito no discurso jornalístico impresso e eletrônico

This article is based on French Discourse Analysis and mobilizes the concepts of filing, memory and subject position so as to head for the ways of the electronic network with the purpose to understand how sayings are constituted, on the large File, in order to document the previous day (printed) or the current day (electronic). By promoting the mobilization of important concepts in the communication field, a reflection is made on their contribution as well as on that of the discursive theory in order to problematize how meaning is produced in printed and electronic journalistic material and the way how the subject moves on a page of printed and electronic discourse. By analyzing the corpus collected from the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and Folha OnLine, it is inferred that memory and ideology promote the return of certain meanings and the suppression of others, and that the discursive subject moves from a position in which it is possible for him to report and inform.

Trapped in the Law: Legal Actors' Attitudes Toward Legal Practice as a Solution for Social Problems

Courtroom dynamics literature has studied the interactions within the 'courtroom workgroup' - prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges, attributing legal practices in the courtroom to the effects of power struggles and professional interest conflicts between the actors. This paper reintroduces into the picture the important factor of formal law and legal indoctrination, claiming that much of the actors' opinions and behaviors can be attributed to their inability to introduce external perceptions of the problems they address into the legal framework within which they operate. The paper is based on 40 in-depth interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys and ex-judges in the Israeli military justice system about cases involving disobedience to military service - desertion, unauthorized absences and conscientious objection. The interviews reveal the overpowering effect of legal indoctrination on the perception of these problems and their solutions. Almost all interviewees use the doctrinal legal categorization as the main definition of the problems they deal with, despite their understanding of the political and socio-economic dimensions of the problems. Their policy suggestions are equally limited. Almost all interviewees perceive a tension between their perception and the broader, social definitions of the problem, and have different ways of resolving it: loyalism, bureaucratic thinking, idealism, cynicism and limited innovation. The findings shed light on the impact of legal communications and disciplinary discourse on individual perceptions, and support the usage of discursive theory - focusing on Luhmann and Teubner's autopoiesis - as a strong explanation of professional behavior and interaction, even at the individual level.

‘Othering’ and ‘selving’ in therapeutic dialogue

In this article we consider therapeutic conversations about suffering and sexual identity through an ethical and practical lens we refer to as ‘othering’ and ‘selving’. The ethical lens is shaped by recent developments in discursive theory and approaches to therapy. Our practical lens draws from research by discourse analysts showing how conversational practices feature in consequential ways in delicate discussions such as those about suffering and sexual identity. After helping readers understand these lenses we then use them in examining actual discussions about identity and suffering. We conclude with some general ideas and reflective questions for therapists wishing to extend these kinds of sensitivities and conversational practices in their work with clients.

Decisions and advice about infant feeding: findings from sociological work in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

What are women's practices and experiences? And what are pregnant women being told about risks through breastfeeding in an area of high HIV seroprevalence? This work sets out to explore these two principal questions in terms of the implications for women, and for international and national policy guidelines on infant feeding. During a two-year sociological study in KwaZulu-Natal, semi-structured questionnaires, individual and group interviews, and an innovative storytelling element were used to probe women's decision-making concerning infant feeding. In-depth interviews were conducted with different groups of health workers, including AIDS counsellors and traditional birth attendants, and observations were made at both semi-rural and urban hospitals and clinics. The research was carried out at a time when new international and national guidelines concerning HIV and infant feeding were being circulated. The research is framed within critical and discursive theory, influenced by the work of Foucault, and located within a particular feminist theory, concerned with the modes of appropriation of 'the sexed body'. The conclusions centre on ethical considerations and the rights of women to make informed decisions about their own and their baby's health care. Reference is also made to the particular socialisation of health workers, especially maternity nurses. The importance of the earlier struggle against the unethical practices of multi-nationals is recognised, and how this has informed a robust breastfeeding culture. Scant attention has been paid to the results of studies undertaken in other African locations (mainly West Africa) where key players have introduced infant milk formula. The conclusions also engage with the question of the vertical paradigm: how women's lives have been caught up in these dilemmas and conflicts in a country with a rights' culture.

In Truth We Trust: Discourse, Phenomenology, and the Social Relations of Knowledge in an Environmental Dispute

In this age of debate it is not news that what constitutes ‘truth’ is often at issue in environmental debates. But what is often missed is an insight that the speakers of Middle English understood a millennium ago: that truth comes from trust, which, is the central theoretical position of this paper. Our point is that truth depends essentially on social relations – relations that involve power and knowledge, to be sure, but also identity. Thus, challenges to what constitutes the ‘truth’ are equally challenges to identities and the social networks of trust in which that truth is embedded. We therefore attempt to move beyond Foucaultian discursive theory by reintroducing the subject as both the product and producer of discourse. For Foucault, the subject is reduced to the discursive relations of power/knowledge. In his effort to free us from the Cartesian cogito and the modernist absolutisms that eventually followed, Foucault lapses into a kind of postmodern functionalism. We argue that we should not speak of power/ knowledge, as Foucault suggested, but of power/knowledge/identity, recovering the actors and concrete social relations that produce discourse, and are not only produced by it. We then argue that these social relations become constituted (and reconstituted) in particular moments of phenomenological challenge – discursive moments that confront the existing social relations of knowledge and their dialogue of trust and truth. We illustrate the implications of a threat to the social relations of environmental knowledge through an analysis of one such moment of phenomenological challenge: a dispute over whether or not the power plant in the community where we used to live, Ames, Iowa, is producing dioxin.

In Truth We Trust: Discourse, Phenomenology, and the Social Relations of Knowledge in an Environmental Dispute

In this age of debate it is not news that what constitutes ‘truth’ is often at issue in environmental debates. But what is often missed is an insight that the speakers of Middle English understood a millennium ago: that truth comes from trust, which, is the central theoretical position of this paper. Our point is that truth depends essentially on social relations – relations that involve power and knowledge, to be sure, but also identity. Thus, challenges to what constitutes the ‘truth’ are equally challenges to identities and the social networks of trust in which that truth is embedded. We therefore attempt to move beyond Foucaultian discursive theory by reintroducing the subject as both the product and producer of discourse. For Foucault, the subject is reduced to the discursive relations of power/knowledge. In his effort to free us from the Cartesian cogito and the modernist absolutisms that eventually followed, Foucault lapses into a kind of postmodern functionalism. We argue that we should not speak of power/ knowledge, as Foucault suggested, but of power/knowledge/identity, recovering the actors and concrete social relations that produce discourse, and are not only produced by it. We then argue that these social relations become constituted (and reconstituted) in particular moments of phenomenological challenge – discursive moments that confront the existing social relations of knowledge and their dialogue of trust and truth. We illustrate the implications of a threat to the social relations of environmental knowledge through an analysis of one such moment of phenomenological challenge: a dispute over whether or not the power plant in the community where we used to live, Ames, Iowa, is producing dioxin.

Rights, Culture, and Cosmopolitan Democracy

This essay examines the promise of universal democratization in relation to the threat of cultural homogenization. Does the promotion of human rights represent an unacceptable form of global cultural homogenization? How might it be possible to respect the dignity of individual cultures even while advancing the cause of rights as a matter of right versus wrong? The paper argues the case that these two conflicting impulses can be addressed within a discursively oriented theory of global democracy. The argument relies on Habermas's theory of communicative action, applying his discursive theory of democracy to the prospect of cosmopolitan democracy at the global level. An analysis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights illustrates the application of discursive democracy in a cosmopolitan setting.