Tracing how ways of talking produce objects, subjects and truths, and which power relations they keep in place.
- +Fits Post-structuralist Epistemology
- –Tension with Positivist Epistemology, Phenomenological Epistemology
Key thinkers: Michel Foucault, Ian Parker, Carla Willig
The longer story
Foucauldian discourse analysis traces how knowledge and power intertwine in what can be said. Discourse isn't just language—it's systems of thought that make certain things sayable and others unthinkable. You're looking for how subjects are constituted through discourse, how practices are legitimated, how what counts as 'true' gets established. It's archaeological (how did this discourse become dominant?) and sometimes genealogical (tracing historical emergence). Uncomfortable tools because they apply to your own analysis too.