Minority activism as a technology of the self: an illustrated outline for an interpretive and functional approach to discourse and subjectivity
(2014) 1ste EDISO Conference: Estudios sobre Discurso y Sociedad — Location: Sevilla (15.May.2014)
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- Abstract: Political activism is an umbrella term for a multiplicity of activities through which subjects publicly (re-) articulate social relations and redistribute various forms of capital by means of imagined public action. Activist practices do not only impact on (one’s relationship towards) society but also on one’s relationship towards oneself (Zienkowski 2013). It therefore functions as a technology of the self through which one constructs a particular mode of awareness of who and what one is as a human being (Foucault 1982, 1988, Holstein and Gubrium 2000). Changes in this awareness are frequently marked in talk about self and politics. This will be evidenced with reference to interviews conducted with Moroccan activists and intellectuals in the Flemish (Belgian) minority debates (Zienkowski 2011). An understanding of the way activists shape a sense of coherence requires insight into their linguistic and metalinguistic strategies (Mertz and Yovel 2009, Zienkowski 2012, Verschueren 2004, Hübler and Bublitz 2007). The establishment of a critical world-view requires a complex articulation of oneself to a whole set of experiences, individuals, institutions and practices. With reference to poststructuralist and linguistic pragmatic insights, the author argues that these processes are frequently indexed in concrete language use (Verschueren 1999, Robinson 2006, Verschueren 2011, Glynos and Howarth 2007, 2008). A focus on these indexical references allows for an analysis of the large-scale interpretive processes that prompt political activism. Keywords: discourse theory, linguistic pragmatics, subjectivity, politics, activism, interviews, self-technique Bibliography Foucault, Michel. 1982. "Technologies of the self." In Michel Foucault: ethics: subjectivity and truth, edited by Paul Rabinow, 223-251. London: Penguin Books. Foucault, Michel. 1988. "The political technology of individuals." In Michel Foucault: power: essential works of Michel Foucault, edited by James Faubion, 403-417. London: Penguin Books. Glynos, Jason, and David Howarth. 2007. Logics of critical explanation in social and political theory. London: Routledge. Glynos, Jason, and David Howarth. 2008. "Structure, agency and power in political analysis: beyond contextualised self-interpretations." Political Studies Review no. 6:155-169. Holstein, James A., and Jaber F. Gubrium. 2000. The self we live by: narrative identity in a postmodern world. New York: Oxford University Press. Hübler, Axel, and Wolfram Bublitz. 2007. "Introducing metapragmatics in use." In Metapragmatics in use, edited by Wolfram Bublitz and Axel Hübler, 1-26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mertz, Elizabeth, and Jonathan Yovel. 2009. "Metalinguistic awareness." In Cognition and pragmatics, edited by Dominiek Sandra, Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren, 250-271. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Robinson, Douglas. 2006. Introducing performative pragmatics. London / New York: Routledge. Verschueren, Jef. 1999. Understanding pragmatics. 2003 ed. London: Arnold. Verschueren, Jef. 2004. "Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use." In Metalanguage: social and ideological perspectives, edited by Adam Jaworski, Nikolas Coupland and Dariusz Galasinski, 53-74. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Verschueren, Jef. 2011. Ideology in language use: pragmatic guidelines for empirical research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zienkowski, Jan. 2011. Analysing political engagement: an interpretive and functionalist discourse analysis of evolving political subjectivities among public activists and intellectuals with a Moroccan background in Flanders. Phd, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Antwerp, Antwerp. Zienkowski, Jan. 2012. "Overcoming the post-structuralist methodological deficit: metapragmatic markers and interpretive logics in a critique of the Bologna process." Pragmatics: quarterly publication of the international pragmatics association no. 22 (3):501-534. Zienkowski, Jan. 2013. "Marking subjectivity in interviews on political engagement: interpretive logics and the metapragmatics of identity." In Was machen Marker? Logik, Materialität und Politik von Differenzierungsprozessen, edited by Eva Bonn, Christian Knöppler and Miguel Souza, 85-112. Berlin: Transcript.
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ICS Universidad de Navarra
Citations
Zienkowski, J. (2014). Minority activism as a technology of the self: an illustrated outline for an interpretive and functional approach to discourse and subjectivity. 1ste EDISO Conference: Estudios sobre Discurso y Sociedad, Sevilla. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/92512