flashcards discourse and narrative analysis

Question 1

discourse analysis =

Answer 1

a research program with methodological assumptions

• not a method of data collection or data analysis per se
• has METHODS used under these assumptions

!!it is not so much a method, it contains different methods

interpretivists methodological assumptions:

• skepticism about possibility of catologuing, calculating and specifying “real causes” - make law-like statements about society
• reality is socially constructed, thus how we represent social reality has consequences for how we organize society

Question 2

key theoretical commitments

Answer 2

1. discourses as “systems of signification” = discourses construct social realities
2. discourse productivity
3. the play of practice

(for exam: understand what commitments mean, don’t need to recognize each specific method and examples)
- (allows you to understand how objectives discourse analysis diff from e.g. qualitative content analysis)

Question 3

discourses as systems of signification

Answer 3

object of study = discourse

discourse = system of signification
(theoretical, not a material thing)
(the meanings that others make)

• identifies and differentiates things (what is that)
• defines power relations or hierarchies (which is better?)

where are these discourses? cultural productions, especially but not exclusively texts

Question 4

discourse productivity

Answer 4

discourses produce the reality that they define (discourse does not just describe worlds, they create them, define really)

• selectively constituting narrative authorities: who tells what is and what’s better
• rendering logical and appropriate specific policies
• becoming dispersed beyond authorized subjects to make “common sense” for many in everyday society

e.g. studies on the production of common sense and policy practices

Question 5

the role of “practice”

Answer 5

discourses have a history: they come to be through social-political processes (may overlap with process tracing)

-> system of significance they create is contingent:

• someone needs to work to define and produce it
• others resist it
• something else arises, so that what we are capturing in our research is product of a process (which we can trace)

Question 6

for the exam

Answer 6

know how the theoretical commitments diff + how it is diff from quantitative analysis

• important distinguis: conent analysis is menaing in context, but kind of taking it at face value (extract true motives) = kind of behavioral
  discourse = not finding true meaning, true intentions others does not matter, what matters is the world it creates, words create a world no matter what the intentions are in it
• content analysis often overlooks the role of power: way we speak is power-hierarchies we are enforcing

!!! main diff is that content analysis is positivist, discourse analysis is interpretivist

!!!not about hypothesizising, want to investigate the world view that is being constructed

Question 7

(why questions vs how questions)

Answer 7

why questions = what circumstances led to Y?
- positivist

how questions = what kind of worldview makes Y possible
- constructivist IR

• interested how assigned meaning to actions makes them possible (conceivable)
• possibility of Y presupposes ability of decision-makers to imagine Y (discourse sets possibilities)

Question 8

discourse analysis geared to analyze the relationship between:

Answer 8

language and power

look how discourse creates specific possibilities and excludes others

• it sets possibilities
• it denaturalizes other options

!does not take meanings as a given, it asks how languages creates meanings, and how these meanings create a world.

Question 9

discourse analysis case article

Answer 9

how was the post-colonial hierarchical US-Philippines relationship constructed?
- how was American interventionist policy in the 1950s made conceivable + how did discursive practices contribute to create a hierarchy

does:

• presuppositions: facts that are taken to be true (e.g. Filipinos are passionate rather than rational, they are like children)
• predicative analysis: what is said about nouns (verbs, adverbs, adjectives)
  e.g. childlike, imperialist
• subject positioning (how a hierarchical arrangement is constructed)

-> under these premises, doing nothing was not an option for the US, direct action wasn’t either -> counterinsurgency (military support, diplomatic presence, eco assistance etc, covert action CIA)

intertextuality -> empirical support for existence dominant discourse BUT could be criticized for selection bias