Discourse Analysis and Archeology of Knowledge

On Discourse Analysis (excerpts from video)

Yeah, let's jump into this term now. I mentioned that he doesn't actually use this term, and the way I'm understanding it here is coming from his text called "The Archaeology of Knowledge."

It's an incredibly complicated text, and in a lot of ways, it's a way for him to rethink some of the central theses that he presented in "The Order of Things," originally called in French "des moines shows" which is, also directly translates to "words and things". And, The Archaeology of Knowledge is largely a way for him to understand how unities of statements can come into existence. Now, I want to be really clear, and I want to be very simple. What he's describing is how seemingly different statements can be clumped into categories that could then be understood. They could then be deployed to attain knowledge, to understand the world.

So for example how is there any kind of confluence or any kind of symmetry or similarity between, Aristotle's thinking about physics, and Newton's thinking about physics. Or Newton's thinking about physics versus Einstein's thinking about physics. Now when we talk about it, we just kind of conveniently say, "Oh well, Newton's talking about physics," maybe Aristotle's not the best example. Let's say "Newton's talking about physics, and then Einstein's also talking about physics. But between the two of them are vast differences, yet we make our lives easy by saying that they belong to this similar discipline, "physics", and that joins them together."

Now this this joining together allows two broad things to occur. It allows advances in that field to occur, and it allows people outside of that field to study and approach that field. So then, you can have programs and universities framed around "physics". You can have textbooks framed around "physics" that give people a kind of entryway into this domain called "physics". But the unity between these different ideas, these different statements, these different thinkers within this field, is going to differ. It's going to differ drastically. And so, we've kind of butchered these thinkers in this field, and molded it in order to fit a certain idea about what "physics really is".

So in order for that to happen, there had to not only be an agreement upon what counts as "physics", there had to also be an agreement of what does not count as "physics". So any statement that might emerge within physics, can be engaged with through this lens of "discourse analysis". Because discourse analysis looks at the ways in which language statements, discourse, operate within a specific model of thought and belong to a specific paradigm of organization that permits some knowledge to emerge, some statements to emerge, while excluding other ones, while saying other ones don't exactly fit within that narrative. So "discourse analysis" very simply, as of now, is just an effort to parse through these narratives to find out upon which basis they rest. How are they inscribed within a social atmosphere in order to gain "legitimacy". Because "physics" is a legitimate field. It's a very important legitimate field, but it doesn't just attain that status on its own. Of course, it has to be, we have to be taught that, and it has to be organized in such a way as to lend itself to in some cases mass audiences that can acknowledge it as being this reputable field.

But discourse analysis doesn't only look at the organization of some statements, of some annunciations. It is also interested in how these enunciations and how these statements gain validity and how they actually come to be organized.

So Foucault sets out as very interesting. In "The Archaeology of Knowledge", he says that he started by looking at various theses, four theses, or hypotheses. And he said, the first one was, maybe that all of these different statements, like, in the case of "physics" for example, are all organized as one singular thing. Maybe they're just organized around "physics". So there's this thing in the world called "physics" or it corresponds to "laws that organize the world and organize the universe". And so everything else that emerges, that talks about physics, or that talk about physics, then belong to that domain.

But of course, with that hypothesis, he ran into a wall. And that wall was that not all explanations about physics fall into the domain of physics. For example, flat earthers do not belong to physics, even though for all intents and purposes, a lot of what they do is physics. They are discussing physics, and trying to prove physics, just their own version of physics. Yet, that is not a narrative that can fit within that paradigm. And you know rightly so. But it begs the question, "How then do these statements come to be organized if some explanations that talk about the thing we claimed was the core at issue here, that is physics, if some statements that talk about physics don't actually fit within that broader canon?" There seems to be something else going on here.

So he said, "Okay, maybe there's a an organizing principle around like the "themes of physics". Maybe there are specific themes that, you know, remain true across time. And then that can bind, you know, Newton to Einstein, even though they're many centuries apart. Maybe there are themes that do that". Well, the problem with that is that these themes are incredibly nebulous, and they aren't clear at all, and they're going to be changing across time and space. I mean, the concerns of Newton, largely, you know, located in his own way, were entirely, perhaps not entirely, but they were very much reevaluated and overhauled with Einstein's theories. And so what we see then is within the domain of physics, actually a repudiation of themes, for the emergence of new themes. And with, you know, quantum physics and whatnot, we would see the same thing happen against Einstein. So themes don't seem to be a great discerning imperative or principle for, you know, joining together these very different ideas and statements.

So he says, "Well maybe it's the "style". Maybe it's like a certain kind of writing that is going to permit this, and that as you've probably guessed is pretty unsatisfactory, given the fact that you know the way that physics is done has changed drastically over time. And the places in which it has occurred has changed drastically over time. There seems to hardly be any kind of universality or consistency in how it has been conducted.

And the same applies to other fields as well like, chemistry like psychopathology, like the study of grammar. And, you know, anything, any field of study has undergone these kinds of mutations that call into question how we have been able to see the galvanization of various statements around a central theme, or a central idea, or topic, or object of study. Yet they're always changing, and they're always mutating it. We've all agreed, and see, that there is a fundamental connection between Newton and Einstein. Yet we don't know, if we're actually pressed, how they are joined together. Now what seems to be more the case is, that within these fields there are these ruptures, there are these discontinuities between very similar ideas, and this isn't to say that Newton and Einstein shouldn't be clumped together, but it's important to acknowledge that within these organizations, our discontinuities, our ruptures, our splits, our breaks that problematize and call into question that very unity. So discourse analysis is also going to be concerned with these elements of discourse that aren't said, and things that aren't seen. These ruptures, these breaks yet are nevertheless present within this very dynamic. Because it is within the unseen, within the unheard, that we can glean a lot about what is actually seen, and what is actually heard.

So one way I like to think about this, and it might be kind of a simple way to think about it, as with "conspiracy theories". Where in the case of conspiracy theories, we can learn a lot about conspiracy theorists based off of what they don't say, in addition to what they do say. 

So, for example, even though there's overwhelming evidence that there's, like, a "white dude conspiracy to organize the world". I mean white men have the most wealth and power on the entire globe, there don't seem to be that man,y among conspiracy theorists, there don't seem to be that many narratives that say, "Oh wow, no, there's a white male conspiracy to try to take over the world." It seems as though, conspiracies, or conspiracy theories are only reserved for marginalized people. Like Jewish people, or like, women organizing to overthrow, you know, the "American way of life", or whatever. 

And so by looking at what isn't said in this discourse, in the conspiracy theorists lexicon, and here we're really focusing on like the" big name conspiracy theorists". The Alex Jones, the David Eikes of the world, these type of people, by looking at what isn't said within their discourse, we can actually glean a lot from what is said. And it reveals the extent to which that their discourse operates as an extension of a fundamental status quo, one that largely privileges white men in these contexts. 

And we also see the same thing in other contexts, depending on who the majority group is there. And this is part of my own study, is that there's this one YouTube channel titled "Voice TV" in Nigeria, in which they point to white people as being these conspirators on a global level. And so it's interesting there, to see how in that context where white people don't make up the majority, we can see this capacity to point the finger at white men who essentially, very much, control the world. 

And that calls into question then, what elements within this discourse, are excluded and included, and how does looking at this, how does interrogating this, almost acting like an investigator, reveal the extent to which that, the speaker, operates with, in accordance to other social codes and cultural conventions that happen to be the dominant ones. That happen to be the one that establish and delineate, or make out what is proper speech, what are proper things, that can be studied, what are proper points of connection that can be drawn between. In the case of conspiracy theories, who can be pointed to as being a conspirator. Is it only Jewish people, or is it, can they be white men who, as all evidence points to the fact there does seem to be a lot of white men with a lot of power signaling that there might be a kind of conspiracy afoot. So we see then that, even though there are disparate thoughts and ideas, like in the case of conspiracy theories where Alex Jones and David Eike, are not on the same level at all, they talk about very different things. They both fall into the camp of conspiracy theories, we know that they can then be clumped together not because there's this kind of unitary universal thing that is the conspiracy theory that they both talk about. 

No, what really binds them together is the fact that there's an entire enterprise dedicated to establishing some forms of thought as "conspiracy theories", as illegitimate, as being like: deviant or outside of the norm. And so, by virtue of that, they can then fall into a certain clumping category of "disrepute". 

So it doesn't say anything about themselves, but rather, these organizational frameworks that emerge around discourse, to group discourse together, and statements together, is largely motivated by the exertion of a kind of force. An exertion of power to make it so that these narratives don't stray too far from one another, and that they can be better understood, better mapped, better coordinated, and really better controlled. 

Now the task here is not to say that all of these knowledges that fall into the under the domain of discourse, as statements, are all going to be subjugated, or all going to be determined, or oppressed, by these mechanisms of ordering, or of power. Some of them are very much going to be in league with the very status quo. Like Alex Jones, like David Eike, these people that very much benefit from this system. 

So discourse analysis is then concerned with the organization of these statements, those points of disorganization and discontinuity of these statements, the ways in which power is motivated to keep these ruptures at bay. in order to keep this organization clear. And then, how some narratives within these discursive paradigms are going to operate to maintain a status quo, while some are going to resist that status quo, are going to call attention to it. 

Now this means moving beyond, you know, the semiotic thing of finding attachment between signs, and signifiers and signifieds, and everything like that. Or the process of trying to find like intention, or motivation behind certain statements. To say that, "Like well, if we just understood what the author was thinking in their head, then we can find the truth of the statement. And that is because, in almost every single case, statements, once they have been expressed, depart from their speaker, or the writer, or whatever, and exists then within a certain economy of discursive practices and organizations that are going to then position that statement within a certain framework, and are going to then determine whether or not that statement is going to be permitted, or going to be excluded is going to be shunned, it's going to be derided, whatever. 

And so discourse analysis is concerned with how a statement exists within an economy of meaning, be it, you know, cultural, social, economic, political, and how it exists within that sphere, how it is taken up, what purpose does that discourse serve, is it going to maintain certain status quo, is going to call attention to it, is it going to operate at the behest of various authority figures, is it going to oppose them. How is the very opposition of these authority figures going to be called into question, by the very clever tactics of these organizing principles that actually subsume counter narratives, make these counter narratives work in favor of these organizing systems. And that's essentially what discourse analysis tries to do.

 And I hope that that was somewhat clear, able to give you a better idea for those people out there that are working on a method section of a paper or something, and you want to look into discourse analysis or to apply it. I hope I was able to give you a little bit of information there. Clearly, going to check out "The Archaeology of Knowledge" would be the best way to go about doing this.