hi ian
there is a passage from an interview foucault gave in 1967 that I have taken as a kind of methodological prescription in writing my thesis about foucault, which i think may be of some help in addressing your question.
the interview has the title 'on the ways of writing history,' and the passage reads as follows:
'Instead of reconstituting the immanent secret, [criticism; k] treats the text as a set of elements…among which one can bring out absolutely new relations, insofar as they have not been controlled by the writer’s design and are made possible only by the work itself as such. The formal relations that one discovers in this way are not present in anyone’s mind; they don’t constitute the latent content of the statements, their discreet secret. They are a construction, but an accurate construction provided that the relations described can actually be assigned to the material treated…[they are constructions that]…place people’s words in relations that are still unformulated, said by us for the first time, and yet objectively accurate' (EW2: 286-287).
regards,
kevin.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ian.walmsley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Thu, 21 May 2009 20:38:46 +0000
> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [Foucault-L] Foucault and interpretivism
>
>
> I am fairly new to Foucauldian methods and am currently trying to
> understand whether the idea of interpretation has any place in using
> Foucault's methods. I understand that for Foucault there is no inside or
> outside of discourse so in using his methods it is important to aviod
> searching for meaning.
>
>
>
> My question would be, when analysing data am I just describing the
> practices? But then surely my descriptions are only my interpretation?
> From what I can see (with my noice minds eye) there is no way out of
> interpretation, or am I just talking about two different things?
>
>
>
> Any feedback about this, or useful and informative pieces to read, or
> some general feedback on using Foucault would be much appreciated.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> Ian
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
____________________________________________________________
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there is a passage from an interview foucault gave in 1967 that I have taken as a kind of methodological prescription in writing my thesis about foucault, which i think may be of some help in addressing your question.
the interview has the title 'on the ways of writing history,' and the passage reads as follows:
'Instead of reconstituting the immanent secret, [criticism; k] treats the text as a set of elements…among which one can bring out absolutely new relations, insofar as they have not been controlled by the writer’s design and are made possible only by the work itself as such. The formal relations that one discovers in this way are not present in anyone’s mind; they don’t constitute the latent content of the statements, their discreet secret. They are a construction, but an accurate construction provided that the relations described can actually be assigned to the material treated…[they are constructions that]…place people’s words in relations that are still unformulated, said by us for the first time, and yet objectively accurate' (EW2: 286-287).
regards,
kevin.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ian.walmsley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Thu, 21 May 2009 20:38:46 +0000
> To: foucault-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [Foucault-L] Foucault and interpretivism
>
>
> I am fairly new to Foucauldian methods and am currently trying to
> understand whether the idea of interpretation has any place in using
> Foucault's methods. I understand that for Foucault there is no inside or
> outside of discourse so in using his methods it is important to aviod
> searching for meaning.
>
>
>
> My question would be, when analysing data am I just describing the
> practices? But then surely my descriptions are only my interpretation?
> From what I can see (with my noice minds eye) there is no way out of
> interpretation, or am I just talking about two different things?
>
>
>
> Any feedback about this, or useful and informative pieces to read, or
> some general feedback on using Foucault would be much appreciated.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> Ian
> _______________________________________________
> Foucault-L mailing list
____________________________________________________________
FREE 3D EARTH SCREENSAVER - Watch the Earth right on your desktop!
Check it out at http://www.inbox.com/earth