Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This book purports to present a theory of crisis and change, and both terms have been shown to be co-constitutive, as change is engrained in crisis, and crisis essentially involves change. The nexus between the two terms led to the introduction of a postfoundational, nonessentialist, discourse theoretical approach that rests on the notions of identity or sedimented practices, dislocation, antagonism, and institutionalization. The notion of discourse in this context epitomizes a new ontological horizon, which at the same time represents the ethical and political, as the constitutive dimensions of a society. In a further analytical step, it is important to distinguish between discourse theory and discourse analysis. Whereas the former is interested in the ontological horizon against which societies, with their dominant practices and processes of subjectification, are formed, the latter—very much in Foucault’s tradition—draws attention to techniques of problematization and ways of questioning normative orders.