HND Social Science
Post-structuralism
POST-STRUCTURALISM
A late C20 French philosophical movement, with origins in literary criticism, dominated by Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida.
The basic premises of post structuralism are that:
- Human beings (a term which usually includes sociologists) cannot get an objective take on 'wholes' (or structures).
- There is no such thing as objective knowledge: phenomena are ‘situated’ within social contexts which privilege some meanings (interpretations) over others and provide the privileged meanings with ‘presence’ or acceptability. But presence does not equate with validity – it’s an artificial rather than an objective attribute. The critical process known as deconstruction explores phenomena by removing layers of privileged meaning. But as one 'false' layer is peeled away, another appears. So the essential ‘realness’ of any phenomenon (if there is such a thing) is ultimately elusive.
- Descartes ("I think therefore I am") is wrong. Not even the self (the 'I' or the 'subject') is knowable. According to poststructuralists, this insight has led to the 'death of the subject'.
Poststructuralism has had a minor impact on sociological theory:
- It reinforces the 'interpretative' view (first expressed nearly a century before Foucault in Simmel's dictum that society is no more than a web of interactions) that analysing the minutiae of social life is more fruitful than analysing the social structure, not least because any notion of structure is culturally formed.
- It undermines over-arching theories (or meta-narratives) such as Darwinism, Marxism, Functionalism and Freudianism, suggesting that they simply reflect a particular interpretation of reality. Lyotard claimed that "scepticism towards meta-narratives" is the central feature of postmodernist thinking.
- It suggests that empirical research merely confirms prejudice. We can no longer "arrive at a hard and fast understanding of social life . . . [so research should instead] seek to develop small localised narratives i.e. low level but detailed understandings of competing realities." [Mel Churton, 1999, Sociological Research, in Sociology Review.vol.8, no.3]
- It challenges the notion that sociological insights might lead to social improvements: if sociologists can offer no more than subjective views, then why should anyone take any notice of them?
discourses
Michel Foucault argues that traditional forms of power, associated with grand-scale institutions such as government and the military, have largely been superseded by power which eminates from what he calls 'discourses':
Item B
Discourses
According to Michel Foucault, power is now concentrated in the hands of a 'thought police' of professionals (journalists, teachers, doctors, counsellors, psychiatrists, social workers, career guidance officers . . .) whose specialised knowledge gives them control over society's 'discourses'. In Foucault's language, a discourse is not simply a stretch of speaking or writing, but a representation or vision of an aspect of society as it is and as it should be. Thus there is a 'discourse of health', 'a discourse of art', 'a discourse of economics' and so on.
Each discourse establishes a set of assumptions which are taken for granted, and thought which transgresses those assumptions is not permitted. Thus the current discourse of economics does not allow for the possibility that public ownership can be superior to private ownership, and the present discourse of education rules out the notion of education for education's sake.
To Foucault, the notion of individuality is a myth : each of us is the 'subject' of the various discourses which permeate society (or indeed are society) and 'discipline' human interaction. Within this web of discourses, each of us learns to police our own behaviour. In other words, we practice self-surveillance - by far the most effective form of social control.
[Reference: Foucault M, 1972, The Archeology of Knowledge, 1972]