Publication details
Captives of Gender Determinism? Poststructural discourse analysis as an analytical and transformative practice
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2009 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Feminist Methods Conference: Electronic Conference Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | http://www.kvinfo.su.se/femmet09/papers.htm |
| Description | The paper focuses on the question of “legitimate” and, for feminist aims, beneficial use of poststructural (or Foucauldian) discourse analysis of individual subjects’ utterances. A Foucauldian understanding of discourse generally implies an interest in the rules and regulations of discourse on an institutional and societal level, rather than on the level of particular individuals’ utterances. The latter focus is typically associated with the use of discourse analysis in social psychology and is sometimes subjected to critique for being less effective and/or faithful to Foucauldian notion of discourse than other discursive approaches. Based on the data from my research on gender identifications among young, heterosexual Czech women and men, I want to argue, however, that the application of poststructural discourse analysis to the study of individual subjects’ utterances is productive, not least because it enables us to see the actual ways in which gender identifications are both reproduced and open to change. The analysis reveals the dominance of deterministic discourses and individual-society dualisms among the study’s participants, yet at the same time allows us to deconstruct these discourses, creating a space for more progressive gender subjectivities and practices. |