Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD)

The knowledge Sociological Discourse Analysis (WDA ) is a technology developed by the sociologist Reiner Keller perspective of social science research on discourse analysis of social relations of knowledge and knowledge policies. The WDA has to examine their starting point in the Sociology of Knowledge by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, jointly authored in her mid-1960s book, "The Social Construction of Reality " the processes of social construction of accessible to everyone everyday knowledge, which they in Germany a exerted great influence on the development of hermeneutic sociology of knowledge. This approach combines the basement with the discourse theory of the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault, whose work relevant to the present prominence of the concept of discourse ensured in the social sciences and inspired numerous discourse analytical approaches in other scientific disciplines. By the WDA both theoretical traditions combined, it provides an extensive research program for the analysis of social practices and processes of communicative construction, transformation and stabilization symbolic orders, together with their consequences at both the individual and institutional levels dar. As a comprehensive analysis perspective, the WDA is now very well received and applied in going beyond the narrower field of social sciences disciplines ( eg in archeology, Japanese Studies, criminology, or in the language sciences). Thus, numerous empirical studies have emerged on the basis of knowledge Sociological discourse analysis in recent years. Under the name of ' Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse ( SKAD ) ' finds the WDA increasingly in the English-speaking world attention.

Theoretical foundations of knowledge Sociological Discourse Analysis

Reiner Keller considers the Wissenssoziologsiche discourse analysis as a research perspective that mediates between basic assumptions in the tradition Berger / Luckmann hermeneutic sociology of knowledge and the discourse- theoretical considerations of Michel Foucault, in order to enable a sociological analysis of knowledge processes above the level of social actors. Keller's central argument here is that the merged in the WDA theory approaches are complementary: while the ( German -language ) sociology of knowledge for a long time dealt mainly with analyzes of the genesis, distribution and institutionalization of knowledge on the social micro-level, while the macro-social contexts of these processes from lost sight of, the discourse- theoretical work of Michel Foucault provide clues to the institutional mechanisms of knowledge production and circulation, but without reflecting the constitutive role of social actors consistently.

" The orientation to Foucault [ ... ] can thus help to correct the micro- sociological and situational bias of the interpretative paradigm and adopt a broader analytical perspective, taking into account the social and historical contexts "

Switching potentials between the two approaches can be found in particular in the tradition of symbolic interactionism, in the sociology of knowledge and discourse- theoretical Career Studies have shown that basement, the relationship between two theoretical strands is not deployed consistently. Thus, the WDA provides the ability to reconstruct different dimensions social knowledge processes and analysis. This makes it possible to examine both the various fields of production of meaning and action practices, including their social consequences and to take their respective institutional and material contexts into account. The anchoring of Foucault's discourse concept in the sociology of knowledge has, according to Keller two advantages: on the one hand, opening up in this way for the Hermeneutic Sociology of Knowledge new perspectives and subject areas. On the other offers for the research discourse by attaching to the interpretive paradigm developed in the methods, access to the qualitative social research

From the perspective of knowledge Sociological discourse analysis can, for example, analyze how public discourses (eg media ) and in specialized discourse (eg in certain sciences ) knowledge of " environmental awareness " is produced and what consequences this has for the social actors that when " environmentally conscious " individuals comprehend. The knowledge Sociological Discourse analysis assumes that the discursively produced truths ( " environmental awareness " ) but by no means have a fully determinative effect on the ( " environmentally conscious " ) individuals, but the subjects are the zoom borne to them truths more or less headstrong and go creative and oppositional with the discursive requirements to, not forgetting also arise repercussions on the discursive level.

Research Practice

By anchoring the knowledge Sociological discourse analysis in qualitative social research, it is possible to use the broad and proven arsenal of empirical research methods to arrive at certain knowledge about the respective objects of study. Another advantage of the design of the WDA as a research program is to have to follow a rigid or dogmatic system of theoretical concepts, but it is possible to make modifications and extensions in the sense of one's own research questions. This is certainly also the attractiveness and use of the research program at very different objects of investigation to explain - which ranges on the research on gender dispositifs in school ( Jaeckle 2008), which is focused on the socio-scientific problem research study of ' Satanism ' ( blacksmith Knittel 2008) and the analysis of the cultural embedding of patterns of interpretation of social movements ( Ullrich 2008, 2013) to analytically inspired conversational analysis of application discourses and discussions ( Truschkat 2008).

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