ABSTRACT
We want to locate this book in the emergent world of postmodern thought, which is characterized by "incredulity towards meta-narratives" (Lyotard, 1984). Lyotard observed a decline in the legitimating authority of the foundational theories of knowledge and of social progress. Michel Foucault (1972, 1978, 1980) contributed to the decentering of these meta-narratives by pointing to the entanglement of knowledge and power in the production of modern life. He asked us to read the social sciences, not so much as places where human li fe was being objectively studied, but rather as places where it was actually being produced in the form of discourse. In other words, we should expect scientific knowledge to be shot through with cultural assumptions and to find that these assumptions are reproduced in many other domains of life, all of which are underpinned by discourse.
