Foucault, Discourse, Discourse Analysis

Foucault introduces a new way of analysis of the social world while he does not make clear how to conduct research. However, it does not mean that Foucault did not leave any space to do a Foucauldian social research (or as he wishes, doing genealogies). Indeed, the manner of Foucauldian social research is an ongoing method(s) which is produced both by Foucault and a researcher. The researcher must read Foucault and then draw out some basic points on which she or he can establish a concrete research method. While he mainly focuses on the internal side of discourse and is uninterested in non-discursive elements in archaeology, he then shifts to an overall view in his genealogical works in which discursive and non-discursive elements lose their significant differences, and they are mingled in each other in a discourse. In this article I will map Foucault’s main theoretical and methodological points and articulate them in my own method of doing a research. In so doing, I touch on general aspects of discourse and discourse analysis, then I will describe Foucault’s method, next I will illuminate how practically to do a discourse analysis.