Post-structuralism
From Geography
Poststructuralism began in the 1960s, created by Jacques Derrida, as a movement within the French philosophy. It migrated soon into the English speaking world, where it had a tranformative impact within philosophy as well as literary and cultural studies. These days the poststructural theory has also his impact within human geography and the other social sciences (Gibson-Graham, 2007, p. 95). Poststructuralism has emerged within and against the modernist tradition of structuralism. Especially the linguistic structuralism of Ferdinand de Saussure has ensured that the poststructuralist movement started. According Ferdinand de Saussure, language is a system of signs. Saussure analyzed the sign into two further elements. The first element, the form (the actual word), he called the signifier. The second element, the idea or concept in your head with which the form was associated, he called the signified (Hall, 1997, p. 31). The poststructuralists call into question the fixed relationship between signifier and signified that characterized Saussurians linguistics. According to the poststructuralists, language does not exist as a system of differences among a single set of signs (Gibson-Graham, 2007, p.96). 'The creation of meaning is an unfinished process, a site of (political) struggle where alternative meanings are generated and only temporarily fixed' (Gibson-Graham, 2007, p. 96).
Most philosophers which were considered as poststructuralists were engaged in diversity, reductionism and writing styles. Jacques Derrida developed the term 'deconstruction’, because he was against totalizing philosophy and argues that philosophy had to be decentralized. Deconstruction is about binaries and hierarchical structures, such as the binary objectivity and subjectivity. With reference to a certain writing style, Derrida suggest that a text must always be associated with the context in which it appears. Therefore, a text is always ambiguous and has multiple interpretations. Through text, we create an interpretation of the world. ‘We cannot stand outside of textuality in an attempt to find objectivity’ (Jones, 2008). Michel Foucault was another philosopher who thought the same about this subject. He also thought that it was impossible to look at a certain situation only in an objective way (Jones, 2008). He analyzed the discursive practices related to knowledge. Foucault rejects the structuralism thoughts. He argued that underlying structures or truths of discourse didn’t exist. According to Deleuze, who was also an poststructuralist, philosophy was a creation of new ideas and concepts of the world. All three philosophers had the same critique, namely the rejection of the self-sufficiency of structures, or unit thinking. They are against a way of thinking that all phenomena ultimately lead to the same principle. Poststructuralism offers a number of strategies for calling into question received ideas and dominant practices, making visible their power and creating openings for alternative forms of practice and power to emerge, see Post-structuralist strategies.
Thoughts of poststructuralism, associated with the relation between action and knowledge, are found in the economic geography. The concept of deconstruction of Derrida is used in economy and has brought up innovative forms of policy and activism. The binary capitalism/non-capitalism is for example proved to be important, because they found out that capitalism is much stronger and able to reproduce itself and non-capitalism does not have that. This construction has opened up concepts of economy. Determinants of social life, an important one is globalization, are seen as discourses. They are constraining the actions of economic agents. There is a possibility of alternative constructions. Globalization in this sense is extradiscursive (Gibson-Graham, 2007, p.103).
Thoughts of poststructuralism could also be associated with history. Poststructuralists argue the concept of totalizing history. Totalizing history means that throughout history there are certain structures that lead to a general history. That history is the same fore everybody. Poststructuralists would argue that people living in specific places conceive history in different ways. When European people think of history, they wil put events that happened in Europe central in their view. Those events would contstruct their history. American people however, would put events that happened in America central in their view. The main point for poststructuralists is that there is not one general history, but that is can be seen from different perspectives.
Example
a post-structuralist view on policy making is that the best policy does not exist. Everyone has his own opinion about the best policy, this is because for everyone, the 'right' policies are diffrent. The best way to make policy in eyes of poststructuralist would be to have a lot of disucussions and deliberations. After all, the real 'right' policy can be not be found, it does not exist.
References
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2007). Poststructural Interventions.
Hall, S. (1997). Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. The Open University, Walton Hall.
Jones, R.(2008). Post Structuralism. Vinddatum 25 oktober. Url: http://www.philosopher.org.uk/poststr.htm
Contributors
Published by Christine Hutting and Milou Pollemans
Links added by Aafke Brus --AafkeBrus 06:41, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Edited by Frank Simons
Edited by Stef Tomesen --StefTomesen 20:50, 25 October 2012 (CEST)
