Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse Analysis. A Research Programme for the Analysis of Social Relationships of Knowledge and Politics of Knowledge

Abstract

In this paper I discuss the theoretical basis of a sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse, WDA), and its methodological implications and transpositions. WDA's emphasis is on the analysis of societal knowledge conditions and politics of knowledge. This specific "translation" between sociology of knowledge and the Foucauldian (type of) discourse analysis in recent times gains in influence not only in sociology but in history, pedagogics/educational science, linguistics, political science, studies of religion, as well as criminology. WDA translates FOUCAULT's concepts and theoretical considerations into a social constructivist frame of reference provided by BERGER and LUCKMANN's sociology of knowledge, thereby linking it to the methodological pool provided by the interpretative paradigm. Unlike most linguistic approaches to discourse, the analysis of knowledge FOUCAULT aimed at comes to the fore, thereby pulling "discursive struggles" into the focus of social scientific discourse analysis. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs100352