ABSTRACT
The chapter lays the theoretical foundation for the book. First, it engages with linguistic structuralism and poststructuralism, arguing that on the one hand that we cannot perceive reality without systems of representation providing meaning. On the other hand, social science cannot do without making statements about reality. Following Foucault, discourse and power as central analytical categories are explored and also refined regarding some problems, ambiguities and contradictions of his work. This results in a poststructuralist archaeological and genealogical method, concerned with the production of meaning in discursive formations and their historical transformation as well as with relations of conditioning, subjectivising and representing power.
