Características del contrato de crédito documentario.

Much has been written (Lather, 1 99 1 ; Weedon, 1 987; Williams, 1 996) about the intersections between feminist and post-modern and post-structural theories. Lather (Lather, 1 99 1 ) claims that "feminism is the paradigmatic political discourse of post-modernism" (p.27), while Weed on (Weedon, 1 987) proffers post-structuralism as contributing to feminism a "useful, productive framework for understanding the mechanisms of power in our society and the possibilities of change" (p. l 0). While each constitutes a range of theories, aspects of which are disparate from one another, various elements exist that are complementary. It is this composite (critical post­ modernism) that theoretically informs how power relations may be transformed. This section outlines the relationships between the key concepts that are central to the critical post-modem theory of agency relations. It then offers critical post-modern theorisations of processes whereby agency is enabled and constrained.

Chapter 5 Theorising analysis and practice: critical post­

Language as discourse A critical post-modern framework for understanding agency relations views language as the common factor in the analysis of social organisation, social meanings, power and individual consciousness. Language is the site where our subjectivity is constructed (Weed on, 1 987). Rather than theorising language as the expression of unique individuality, as in humanist or essentialist terms, critical post-modernism proposes that language constructs the individual's subjectivity in ways that are socially specific. Language is viewed as a system that exists within historically specific discourses, not neutral, but embedded within a discursive context and ensuing power relations. Discourse theory emphasises the fusion of mental phenomena such as beliefs, concepts and categories with social phenomena like institutions and practices (Frazer & Lacey, 1 993). The term discourse emphasises the non-neutrality of language, its role in the construction of reality and the maintenance and reproduction of society. Discourses are not neutral but are tied to political interests and have social implications (Weedon, 1 987).

The discursive field Foucault's (Foucault, 1 980) concept of the discursive field is useful as a way of understanding the relationships between language, social institutions, subjectivity and power. A discursive field consists of competing ways of giving meaning to the world and organising social institutions and practices (Weedon, 1 987). Social structures and processes are organised through institutions and practices such as the law, political system, the church, the family, the education system, and the media, each of which is located in and structured by a particular discursive field. In any one society, one set of discourses is dominant and it reflects particular values and class, gender and racial interests.

To be effective and powerful, a discourse needs a material base in established social institutions and practices. For example Weed on (Weedon, 1 987) points out the way in which gender is understood and acted upon in the context of the nuclear family is central to the reproduction of the sexual division of labour and current norms of masculinity and femininity. At the same time the enactment of gender relations within the domestic sphere are influenced by powerful discourses that define the family and are located within institutional practices. The in<;titutions of law, social welfare provision, the media and churches have powerful material bases and thus the capacity to structure subjects into particular ways of being through the subject positions they offer.

Power and the discursive field Power is viewed as being dispersed (unevenly) throughout the discursive context (Weedon, 1 987). This draws on Foucault's (Foucault, 1 980) thesis of power

Chapter 5 TheoriSing analysis and practice: critical post­

which posits that multiple systems of power are instituted not by openly coercive or repressive state regimes, but by a very wide miscellany of institutions (O'Brien & Penna, 1 998; Sarup, 1 996). These are systems of power (or micro-power) that are inculcated into the behaviours, habits and practices of an entire society of people with the consequence that the rules, r:)des and procedures of regulation and control are experienced as normal features of institutional and everyday life.

The critical post-modernist view of agency relations offered here proposes that power is intimately connected with knowledge (Foucault, 1 980; O'Brien & Penna, 1 998; Weedon, 1 987). For example, Jordan and Weed on (Jordan & Weedon, 1 995) point out that "the power to name, the power to represent common sense, the power to create official versions and the power to represent the legitimate social world" are four major areas where power can be realised by some groups more than others (p. 1 3). This view of power-knowledge operating within the discursive field views the investigation communities (largely immigrant women of colour living on low­ incomes) as having less institutional power to give prominence to their world views than more economically and culturally dominant communities. Their know ledges are subjugated to the 'official views' of the world and events, which tend to be those discourses legitimating white, male and middle class interests.

Subject position Subjects may take up or be allocated particular positions within any discursive field. Constituted of both subjective and objective properties, the term implies elements of choice or agency as well as those of structural determinism. Assuming the position of a thinking, speaking signifying subject involves attributing meaning to experience and opting for one mode of subjectivity amongst other available (Jordan & Weedon, 1 995). However, the degree to which individuals can choose forms of identity or subject positions is circumscribed by social power relations (Weedon, 1 987).

All signifying practices within and between cultures (that is all practices that have meaning) involve relations of power. They offer us particular subject positions and modes of subjectivity which more often than not involve relations of domination and subordination (Weedon, 1 987). Within the investigation contexts of Aotearoa and Canada (as Western, industrialised countries), low-income immigrant women from peripheral nations are subjected to culturally dominant discourses and institutional practices that often position them unagentically. Accessing health­ related services, for example, often means being subjected to (and constituted by) institutional practices based on white, male cultural norms that position these women as being ignorant of

Chapter 5 Theorising a nalysis and practice: critical post­ modernism and community development

' common sense' practices, such as those involved i n Western ideas of caring for children. Discourses shape and influence the parameters of people's thinking and experiencing while institutional and material power relations can make it much harder for people to adopt particular subject positions relative to others. The adoption of a feminist subject position on contraception within her marriage by a Samoan or Tongan woman who had little economic independence would probably be more difficult than for a women who had more economic choices.

In summary, to varying extents, people are active subjects who take up positions from which they can exercise power within a particular social practice, or are subjected to the definition of others (Weedon, 1 987). Critical post-modern theorists who have sought to provide theoretical explanations of agency dynamics have done so from a number of perspectives. These may be organised under two broad categories. The first of these are theoretical explanations of processes whereby people's agency is constrained, whilst the second category relates to processes within which people's agency is enhanced. Both categories are useful for understanding agency dynamics and ultimately 'how people come to exercise increased levels of agency within their everyday lives'. The following sections offer some theoretical perspectives within these two categories.