ABSTRACT
Much has already been said and written about Foucault’s methods of archaeology and genealogy, and how both might help renew our conception of knowledge, Man, and the (modern) subject. Too little attention has nonetheless been paid to the dispositif,2 which I view as a decisive element in Foucault’s method. In this chapter, I suggest what a research design conducted by means of the dispositif might look like. More specifically I want to argue that the dispositif can be understood as the operator of an archaeological research, conducted from a genealogical perspective. Thus understood, I shall argue the dispositif is likely to enable an empirical research that, contrary to most social theories advocating for empirical knowledge, does not assume the (Kantian) thinking subject as the origin of meaning. To better illustrate that claim, I will take a look back at the research on terrorism and US antiterrorism I have been involved in for more than ten years.
