Genealogy and discource analysis

From Geography

Genealogy and discource analysis is one of the Post-structuralist strategies. The basic of these analysis is developed by Foucault. Foucault has written some important papers in the field of Genealogy. Michel Foucault his project was to examine how certain knowledges and meanins become normalized and accepted as Truth (Gibson - Graham, 2000, p. 99). In his work Foucault highlights that the construction of meaning is an enactment of power that can't be traced only in language but also in the discourse. Following Foucault is a discourse a rule governed practice that includes a meaning set within a knowlegde system as, well as instititutions and social practices that produce an maintain thee meanings (Foucault, 1991). Foucault developed in 1981 method of dicourse analysis to challanges the universality and truth of meaning. This analysis involves two main aspects:

(1) A critical analysis of the violence enacted by any theory or system of meaning.

(2) A geneological analyis of the processes, constinuities and discontinuities by which a discourse comes to be formed.

Foucault's influence on poststructualism has produced a focus upon how different forms of power intersect with knowledge production to create certain valorized conceptions of the subject in any historical period (Gibson - Graham, 2000, p. 100).

Example

A good example of Genealogy and discourse in the human geography are the developing strategies of the West in the third world. The relation between the West and the Third World is still influence by historical passing’s. The time of the colonial period has created a certain discourse within the West feels them self better than people in the third world. A good example of a geographer who studied on this is Arturo Escobar. Arturo Escobar (1995), has begun the task of critically analyzing and producing a geology of development discourse. His work traces the historical production of the Third world. Escobar’s close reading reveals how the practice of identifying barriers to growth and prescribing development pathways has in effect violently subjected individuals, regions and entire countries to the powers and agencies of the development apparatus (Gibson-Graham, 200, p.103).

Reference

Escobar, A. 1995. Ecncoutering Development: the making and unmaking of the third world. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gibson-Graham J.K. 2000. Pstructural Interventions.

Foucauld, M. 1991. Politics and the study of discourse. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Contributance

Created and edited by Pieter van Luijk 25 October 2012