Discourse analysis

Discourse analysis as a method, similarly to the theoretical discussion in Chapter 1, has a range of interpretations. But the main focus is the analysis of language in use (Wetherell, 2001), with a particular focus on the ‗global' structures, such as the overall topics and the schematic organization of the discourse or conversation as a whole (Blommaert, 2005). Of particular interest for this study are the following:

 The relations between text and context

 The relations between discourse and power

 The relations between practices and the communicative dimension of discourse

This study will therefore investigate patterns within the language of development in order to understand how these constitute aspects of a larger societal context. This type of Discourse Analysis seeks to draw out the social nature and historical origins of the phenomenon studied, in the case of this study, development itself. The basic assumption here is that the language available enables and constrains not only the expression of ideas but also social practices (Wetherell, et al 2001). This approach has given rise to historical studies known as genealogies which trace back the development of discourses (see Chapters 3 and 4 for genealogies of the mainstream and Islamic development discourses).

2.4.1 Foucauldian discourse analysis

Perhaps more than any other scholar, Michel Foucault is credited with originating discourse analysis, although he explicitly did not set out to found a school of thought (Andersen 2003). In his strongest theoretical work, ‗The Archaeology of Knowledge‘

(originally published in French in 1969), Foucault provides an excursion into discourse analytical methodology, reiterating that the approach to analysis he is outlining is only one possible procedure, and that he is not seeking to displace other ways of analysing discourse or render them invalid. Within the range of analytical strategies suggested by Foucault, knowledge archaeology and genealogy are the methodological tools most relevant to this study (Andersen, 2003).

‗The Archaeology of Knowledge‘ (1972) is Foucault‘s first major attempt at

rationalising and systematising his prior works, although it was not intended to be a

‗method‘ (Andersen 2003: 8). Foucault‘s very concern with analysing discourse has often been mistaken for a search for deeper meaning behind a discourse, leading to the charge that he is a structuralist (Jones, 1994). Given the influence his Marxist teacher Althusser had on him (Andersen 2003:2), it is easy to assume that he is a

structuralist, but Foucault focuses on differences rather than overall structures which might pre-determine the meaning of semantic elements (Andersen 2003).

For Foucault (1972), ‗statements‘ - derived from ―enoncés" (Foucault 1969: 141), which is also often translated as ‗enouncements‘ - are the building blocks of discourse. A statement or enouncement is an abstract matter that enables signs (which are understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics) to assign specific repeatable relations to objects, subjects and other enouncements (Andersen 2003).

Statements are not just utterances or speech acts, but they are an articulation of socially accepted rules that establish meaning (Gutting, 1994).

Hence, discourse, as defined by Foucault, is a demarcated body of formulated statements that are linked together through a socially agreed sequence, creating a particular meaning. Regularities that can be found in the form of such particular sequences can produce discursive formations within a discourse. Foucault used the concept of discursive formation in relation to his analysis of large bodies of

knowledge, such as political economy and natural history (Foucault 1972).

Foucault‘s fundamental concern is the questioning of discursive assumptions by challenging the notion of individual will, as he understands every utterance to take place within the boundaries of a specific discourse to which certain rules of

acceptability apply (Andersen, 2003). As discussed in Chapter 1, Foucault traces the role of discourses in wider social power relationships, emphasizing how truths are produced and maintained. Foucault (1977, 1980) argued that power and knowledge are inter-related and therefore every human relationship involves a struggle and negotiation of power. Discourse, according to Foucault (1977, 1980, 2003) is related to power because it operates by rules of exclusion. Discourses therefore include excluding procedures, not just of arguments and themes, but also of groups

constructed as ‗other‘ and denounced as outsiders, as evident in his research about the discourse of madness (Foucault, 2006).

In this light, it is evident that for Foucault discourse analysis is not merely textual analysis. Texts are not simply independent discursive units:

― … no book can exist by its own powers; it always exists due to its

conditioning and conditional relations to other books; it is a point in a network

; it carries a system of references – explicitly or not – to other books, other texts, or other sentences …‖ (Foucault, 1970 c.f. Andersen, 2003)

Discourse analysis is, hence, concerned with the way statements are dispersed and demarcated in society (Andersen 2003). A prominent example of Foucauldian discourse analysis is Said‘s work ‗Orientalism‘ (1979) that investigates the ‗Western‘

construction of the Orient as ‗the Other‘:

Orientalism [is a] systematic discourse by which Europe was able to manage – and even produce – the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically and imaginatively. (Said 1979: 3)

2.4.2 Knowledge archaeology and Foucauldian genealogical analysis Knowledge archaeology and genealogical analysis cannot be separated and have often been portrayed as two phases of Foucault‘s work. In some ways, genealogical analysis could be regarded as the historical dimension of knowledge archaeology (Andersen, 2003). Whilst archaeological analysis seeks to describe discourses as regularities in the dispersion of statements, including the displacement over time of these regularities, genealogical analysis seeks to open up the discursive field through tracing practices, discourses and the lines of connection to different

institutions, historical conflicts and strategies of control. This analytical dimension is the one which has inspired particularly the post-development school, as discussed in Chapter 1, in its quest to unravel the ―apparatuses of power and domination within

which [the] texts of [development] are produced, circulated and consumed‖

(McEwan, 2002: 129).

Particularly Foucault‘s concept of genealogy as a counter-history of the position of a subject which traces the development of people and societies through history is widely regarded as one of his most powerful contributions to the analysis of power structures (Andersen, 2003). As outlined in Chapter 1, Foucault‘s primary concern was with understanding the operations of power through examining the development, dispersion and control over knowledge. Although genealogy is very much a

methodology for analysing history, it does not adopt a traditional historical method (Carabine, 2001). Foucault's ideas of genealogy were greatly influenced by the work that Nietzsche had done on the development of morals through the exercise of power. In his genealogical approach, which is regarded as controversial by

conventional historians, he picks up on Nietsche‘s critique of history that had focused on the fallacy of antiquarian or monumental historiographies, which in his view

reconstruct history as a ‗mummification‘ or instrumental ‗harmonisation‘ of events respectively (Nietzsche, 1988). Foucault also describes genealogy as a particular investigation into those elements which "we tend to feel [are] without history"

(Foucault, 1980b: 139), which are often unquestioned and have become

commonsense, although they are, as Foucault argues, products of construction.

In order to unravel the process of historical and social construction, according to Foucault (1972), discursive formations can be analysed as the regularity of dispensation of statements which produce objects, subjects, conceptual networks and strategies. Therefore the aim of knowledge archaeology is to detect the rules that govern the way different statements come into being in discursive formations.

―Rules in this context mean rules of acceptability, that is, rules about when a statement is accepted as a reasonable statement‖ (Andersen, 2003: 14).

Moreover, whilst knowledge archaeology focuses on regularity, genealogical analysis seeks out the continuity or more likely the discontinuity of transformation (Andersen, 2003). The continuity and discontinuity of difference is a tool for observation,

employed in order to distinguish discontinuity in that which presents itself as continuity and to examine possible continuities in that which presents itself as new, different or unique (Andersen, 2003: 20). This leads to investigation as to how an object has been construed historically in different ways and in different settings, not just through events but also in terms of active strategies and practices. As Andersen points out:

―Genealogy provides no explanation of causality. … The lines of descent simply imply an originating affiliation, that … [an object, the author] ties together and transforms elements from previous discursive strategies and practices into its own process of construction. Moreover, there is no simple seriality in which discursive strategies successively supersede each other.

Conversely, a new strategy can easily emanate through transformation of elements from a specific discursive formation while this strategy is sustained.

… The endpoint of genealogy determines which discourses and discursive kinships one discovers.‖ (Andersen, 2003: 22)

After setting out the conceptual parameters for Foucauldian discourse analysis, the next section will discuss how a genealogical analysis can be applied to a specific field, in the case of this study, the realm of mainstream and alternative Islamic development theory, policy and practice.

2.4.3 Operationalising Foucauldian Genealogical analysis

In order to trace the power/knowledge networks evident in development discourses a full Foucauldian genealogy would need to be undertaken. As a first step in both genealogical analysis and knowledge archaeology stands the construction of an archive of the relevant discourse. As Foucault (1998: 263) put it: ―One ought to read everything, study everything. In other words, one must have at one‘s disposal the general archive of a period at a given moment. And archaeology is, in a strict sense, the science of this archive.‖ Not until the archive is established is it possible to inquire

about discursive formations, particularly why a specific statement or discursive formation occurred and not another (Foucault, 1972).

However, Carabine (2001) suggests that genealogy can also be used to provide a

‗snapshot‘ of a particular moment without tracing its full history. Given the limitations of a PhD thesis, coupled with the exploratory nature of this study, the author will not attempt to carry out a genealogical analysis that truly considers ‗everything‘.

Nevertheless, this study attempts to provide such ‗snapshots‘ of the two discourses which will be historically contextualised. Data sources for the genealogies are both the primary texts, the seminal works of the respective discourses, and alternative views that may be important to tracing continuity and discontinuity. Moreover, as outlined by Foucault (1972), secondary texts such as policies will be essential in understanding how power is operationalised. In addition, this study will seek to identify different perspectives in the discourses; how and when these emerged and how they were received from within the mainstream and Islamic development fields.

According to Carabine (2001), it is difficult to identify the different stages of genealogical analysis step by step as ―though following a recipe‖ (2001: 285), although she does offer the following indicative programme:

 identification of themes, categories and objects of the discourse;

 looking for absences and silences, that is, what is not present or not spoken of that one might expect to be;

 analysing inter-relationships between discourses.

 considering the context for an issue.

Carabine (2001: 280 - 285) Methodologically-speaking, genealogical analysis is a combination of a range of techniques, a toolbox. This study cannot provide a genealogy that includes inter-textual analysis embodying entire orders of discourse within the mainstream and

Islamic development fields. However, it will provide in Chapters 3 and 4 an exploratory genealogy of the mainstream and Islamic development discourses, including the analysis of a range of texts found to be the most ‗telling‘, the most relevant to address the research questions.