ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how discourse theory, together with perspectives and concepts from STS, provides relevant points of departure for this study. It explains what methods and materials the author have used to answer his research questions, and why. Discourse theory, according to political theorist David Howarth, is a theory that assumes that the meaning of objects and actions is a “product of historically specific systems of rules”. Discourse can be defined quite narrowly, as single utterances or conversations, or it can be conceptualized more widely, as branch-specific language or entire systems of meaning. Schools of discourse analysis may be placed on a scale from structuralist/realist to post-structuralist/constructivist. Foucault is often categorized as being post-structuralist, though many argue that his early work was semi-structuralist, and he himself generally seemed to be against categorizations of this sort.
