Analysing the five discourses

The aim of the analysis was to

… uncover evidence of the forms of knowledge by which people are objectified, the interventions that operate upon them, the judgements, decisions and forms of authority to which they are subject, and the types of relationships with others in which they are situated. In addition, we must take account of how people interact with these issues, how they relate to themselves as particular types of beings tied to moral imperatives, how they act upon their own conduct in accordance with this moral sense, and how they might be struggling with, and resisting, the forces of power and subjectification that act upon them (Yates 2005, p.71).

The discursive analysis inquired into the mechanics of subjection, or the simultaneous production and constraint of any discourse. This involved exploring how the discourses constructed and maintained versions of the truth and normalised these to the extent that they subjugated other ways of knowing. It also inquired into how the discourses seduced the self into acts of self-governing behaviour and self-surveillance. The nexus between these self-governing techniques and the processes of normalisation was of particular interest. The analysis was also concerned with how the discourses assisted the self to refuse dominant ways of being and knowing. How alternative and oppositional readings to any discourse were constructed and how these readings assisted in opening up other spaces of subjectivity were considered important. To this end the analysis asked how the discourses interacted with each other to produce relations of power. This included how the discourses promoted and restrained transformation and change (Foucault 1980a, 1998, 2000a).

Through examining subjectivities construction, one becomes more attuned to the nexus of social and systemic ideas that are circulated through dominant societal discourses and their interpretation at the level of the interpersonal and individual. The critical autoethnography of this thesis explores the nexus of dominant societal discourse and how it is lived out within an individual’s life. It is this nexus that provides the site for developing an attuned analysis of poststructural agency.

The analysis of the five dominant discourses of the coming out journal text contained in chapter five drew upon the work of Gore (1993) whose work was influenced by Foucault (1990, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2000a) and Fehr (1987). This framework examined discourse for their relations of power with respect to political and ethical effects (Gore 1993). Effects are defined as the boundaries that the discourse establishes around knowledge and its construction and what is regarded as true or false. The discursive analysis was interested

therefore in examining the normalising effects of the discourse, the way in which they regulate what can be counted as knowledge. Effects of discourse were also defined as the moral implications and judgments the discourse impelled the subject to make about himself. The analysis was therefore interested in how the subject of the coming out journal was implicated in, but also resisted these processes of governance (Gore 1993; Tamboukou 2003, Tamboukou & Ball 2003a, b).

Each of the discourses was examined for the ways in which they established binary thinking. In looking for the way a discourse constructed differentiations, the focus was on how knowledge and power worked to allow the subject to act upon the actions of others. The analysis examined the aims and functions of power and the specific techniques and practices that actualised these relations of power. The discourses were also examined for normative statements that classified, regulated, categorised, judged, measured, and compared behaviour, actions, thoughts and feelings. These normative statements assisted with analysing how the discourses included certain ideas and knowledge and how they excluded others. This analysis of normative thinking assisted to analyse the way in which the discourses promoted a moral judgment to be made by the subject of the coming out journal text on himself. The analysis was interested in how the subject himself was implicated in constructing and governing boundaries around what is known and what is regarded as true and false. It therefore looked at how the subject disciplined or styled himself within the boundaries of a discourse, the moral codes that guided this self-styling, the practices and behaviours that allowed it to be carried out and the overarching goal that the self aspired to be within this practice of self-governance (Gore 1993; Foucault 1990, 1992). These moral judgments form a crucial aspect to the mechanics of power and its investment in the production of subjectivities that simultaneously promote and restrain agency (Davidson 1986, pp.228-229; Foucault 2000a; Gore 1993; Tamboukou 2003).

A detailed analysis of each of the five discourses is provided in chapter five. An overview of each discourse is given, before describing the discourses’ main features, illuminated with reference to specific examples from the coming out journal text. Each discourse is then examined for its political and ethical (Gore 1993) effects on the construction of subjectivity. The analysis of each discourse also includes a section on how the self of the coming out journal can be seen to resist the normative expectations of that particular discourse’s meaning-making system; how the subject refused to comply with that discourse. In the concluding chapter, findings are presented that examine the interconnectedness of the five discourses. Looking at this interrelationship is significant in examining the strength of discourse to restrain other ways of being and knowing;

however, it is also important in terms of understanding how resistance is possible and inextricably a part of any power relation. The examination of each discourse and the interconnections between the discourses was vital to the overall aim of the study to locate the ways in which day-to-day life contains the capacity to refuse and resist relations of power that do not always serve an individual’s best interests (Gore 1993).

3.21 Conclusion

This chapter has outlined the methodological principles of the study, drawing upon critical constructivist research (Kincheloe 1997), critical autoethnography (Reed-Danahay 1997; Denzin 1997) and feminist poststructural research methodology (Britzman 2000, Lather 2001; Richardson 1998). It has argued that these principles cohere with the postructural underpinnings of the overall research design. It has located the analysis of the construction of sex, gender and sexuality within the coming out journal as a Foucauldian discursive analysis that investigates three modes of a critical ontology of subjectivity: truth, power and ethics. The chapter has outlined how constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz 2000; Charmaz & Mitchell 2002) has been used to develop a rigorous approach to the thematic/category analysis of the data which, in turn, has led to the construction of five discourses. These five discourses form the central focus for the investigation into the analysis of poststructural forms of agency. They have been examined for their political and ethical effects in producing and constraining certain versions of reality and knowing. The five discourses were also examined in relation to their inter-connnectedness. The discourses analysis will be used to reframe the emancipatory principles of critical/feminist pedagogical praxis within chapter six. The next chapter provides the findings of the first stages of the data anlaysis, detailing the 13 categories with specific references to the coming out journal text. These are offered as a way of illuminating the process by which the five dominant discourses have been constructed, which are defined and analysed within chapter five.

CHAPTER4