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An interpretive and functionalist heuristic for analysing public discourse: the case of activist discourse in Flemish minority politics

par Zienkowski, Jan
Référence 8th International GRADUN Workshop (24/05/2012: University of Navarra, Pamplona)
Publication Non publié, 2012

Communication à un colloque

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Résumé :

In this lecture I present a general outline of the work I conducted in the context of my doctoral research. By means of a theoretical and methodological exploration of poststructuralist, pragmatist and linguistic pragmatic approaches to discourse and subjectivity, I propose an interpretive and functionalist heuristic for analysing large-scale socio-political debates. I focus specifically on the way activists and intellectuals with a Moroccan background engaged in Flemish minority politics articulate a preferred sense of self in relation to a preferred sense of politics. This involves an exploration of the large-scale interpretive logics these people use when linking these concepts to each other and to the socio-political practices constitutive of the public sphere. How do activists and intellectuals analyse, criticise, and shape the various worlds wherein they find themselves? In what ways are preferred modes of politics linked to a preferred sense of self? How do people manage to make sense of the multiplicity of abstract categories that structure socio-political debates? How can one identify the boundaries of a debate? Why do people value one set of abstract categories over another? And how may one empirically investigate the way one functionally relates a preferred sense of self to a preferred mode of political engagement? By addressing such questions, I will exemplify the heuristic and theoretical proposed in my doctoral thesis. Gradually, a society wide debate characterised by a high degree of reflexivity will emerge.