Document Type : Original Article

Abstract

Foucault introduces a new way of analysis of the social world while he does not make clear how to conduct research. However, it does not mean that Foucault did not leave any space to do a Foucauldian social research (or as he wishes, doing genealogies). Indeed, the manner of Foucauldian social research is an ongoing method(s) which is produced both by Foucault and a researcher. The researcher must read Foucault and then draw out some basic points on which she or he can establish a concrete research method. While he mainly focuses on the internal side of discourse and is uninterested in non-discursive elements in archaeology, he then shifts to an overall view in his genealogical works in which discursive and non-discursive elements lose their significant differences, and they are mingled in each other in a discourse. In this article I will map Foucault’s main theoretical and methodological points and articulate them in my own method of doing a research. In so doing, I touch on general aspects of discourse and discourse analysis, then I will describe Foucault’s method, next I will illuminate how practically to do a discourse analysis.

Keywords

 

Dean, M. (1997) Critical and Effective History: Foucault's Methods and Historical Sociology. London: Routledge.
Dreyfus, H, L & Rabinow, P. (1983) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fairclough, N. (1993) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Foucault, M. (1969) The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1970) The Order of Things. London: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1971) "Orders of Discourse". Social Science Information 10 (2), pp. 7-30.
Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-1977. (ed by) C Gordon. New York: Pantheon
Foucault, M. (1983) Afterword: the Subject and Power. In Dreyfus, H and Rabinow, P, Michel Foucault: beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Brighton: Harvester Press; 206-226.
Foucault, M. (1986) The Foucault Reader. (ed by) P. Rabinow. London: Penguin Books.
Foucault, M. (1988) Technologies of the Self. (ed by) L H Martin, H Gutman and P H Hutton. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Foucault, M. (1990) History of Sexuality, Introduction. London: Penguin.
Foucault, M. (1991a) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. (ed by) G Burchell, C Gordon, & P Miller, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Foucault, M. (1991b) Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison. London: Penguin.
Hook, D. (2005) "Genealogy, Discourse, ‘Effective History’: Foucault and the Work of Critique". Qualitative Research in Psychology 2(3), pp. 3-32.
Kendall, G & Wickham, G. (1999) Using Foucault's Methods (Introducing Qualitative Methods series). London: Sage.
McNay, L. (2005) Foucault, a Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Shiner, L. (1982) "Reading Foucault: Anti-Method and the Genealogy of Power-Knowledge". History and Theory, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Oct. 1982), pp. 382-398.
Smart, B. (1989) Foucault, Marxism and Critique. London: Routledge.
Taylor, S. (2001) Evaluating and Applying Discourse Analytic Research. In Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis. Margaret Wetherell, Stephanie Taylor and Simeon J Yates eds. London: Sage.
Veyne, P. (1993) "The Final Foucault and His Ethics". Critical Inquiry, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 1-9.