In critical research more generally it has been suggested that there are several major weaknesses in social theory (Boje, 2001). Two key themes in particular are emphasised. They are emancipation and power relations (Valero-Silva, 2001:1).
Traditionally, critical theory has been described as a form of historical materialism and is much influenced by issues of class, ethnicity and gender. Critical theory tends to view situations through a lens of local domination by powers-that-be, with the potential for localised resistance. Hegemony is a characteristic, with conflict and contradictory tensions featuring in the analysis. It is generally agreed that critical theory has substantial (though not exclusive) roots in the Frankfurt School of the late 1920s (Valero-Silva, 1996:63-65). This intellectual movement was a reaction to the
perceived domination of thinking at the time by positivism and can be understood against a backdrop of a post-Enlightenment, Modernist social context. Key thinkers include Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer, Jürgen Habermas and Herbert Marcuse (Tully, 1999; Walsham, 1993).
The Frankfurt School identified taken-for-granted assumptions about aspects of their contemporary society and argued that their form and nature were shaped by existing social and historical contexts (Lyytinen & Klein, 1985). They also highlighted that the very ways in which such shaping was recorded and represented were themselves the product of their time, and could (and should) be called into question (Boje, 2001).
This has given rise to critical theory’s claim to be able to mount a self-critique of its own knowledge claims as well as offer a critique of social conditions. Underlying the focus of the Frankfurt School was the desire not only to expose inadequacies in society, but also to encourage reflection upon and emancipation from such inadequacies as were identified (Ashenden & Owen, 1999).
It has been said that critical research has grown in popularity as a response to disillusionment with traditional forms of inquiry (Alvesson & Willmott, 1992:3).
Critical research in practice has developed over time into a broad church that extends beyond traditional forms of critical theory. Consequently, we need a broader definition of what it means to be ‘critical’ (Alvesson & Deetz, 2000). If all this should sound daunting, even inconsistent, Alvesson and Willmott (1992:3) draw attention to the fact that critical theory has always encouraged the creative borrowing of ideas from different schools of theory and practice. The common thread is usually the emancipatory interest rather than the detailed following of any one particular theorist. The language of critical theory emphasises ‘emancipatory intent’ because it acknowledges that an emancipatory outcome cannot be guaranteed. Hence, the focus is on process rather than outcomes. Any approach that claims an emancipatory intent should be able to promote participation and take account of unequal power relations.
Foucault’s work has been variously labelled as post-structuralist (Boje, 2001) and post-modern (Walsham, 1993). One explanation for this could be the way in which his ideas tend to be applied within philosophical contexts at variance with Foucault’s own original roots. This may especially apply to translation of his ideas into contexts
involving material technology. Foucault challenged an idea central to critical theory, viz. that relations of power are not something negative in themselves and something from which one must be emancipated. Rather he argues that there are often aspects of power that are beneficial for the stakeholders involved (Foucault, 1972). Indeed, he does not believe that there can be a society without relations of power, by which he means power in the sense of trying to conduct or influence the behaviour of others.
He also argued that any production of knowledge contains within itself the potential for contradictory outcomes (Foucault, 1972). For instance, generating insights into a set of power relationships with the intention of opening up the relationships can actually result in their becoming more entrenched and inscribed. Thus, emancipatory intentions do not always lead to desired outcomes. It is partly for this reason that many researchers have emphasized the usefulness of Foucault’s approach in conducting critical inquiry (Boje, 2001).
We argue that Foucault’s thinking, especially its self-critical capacity, and his recognition of the role of unequal power relations and the potential for contradictory outcomes is particularly salient for this study. We focus particularly on Foucault’s analyses of power relations and the forces of domination that result from inequalities in power.
1.5.2 Discourse Analysis
The approach taken in this study can be described as discursive, in the sense that it stems from the recognition of the importance of the dynamics of discourse and power to any study of development. Discourse analysis creates the possibility of:
“stand[ing] detached from [the ICT, poverty and development discourse], bracketing its familiarity, in order to analyze the theoretical and practical context with which it has been associated” (Foucault, 1986:3).
This is the task that the present study seeks to accomplish. Discourse can be defined as an ensemble of ideas, concepts and categories through which meaning is given to phenomena (Gasper & Apthorpe, 1996). Discourse analysis requires explicit and systematic attention to texts, policies, strategies, projects, programmes as well as social and historical contexts (Fairclough, 1992; Backhouse, Henderson & Dudley-Evans, 1993; Watts, 1993). That every truth is a claim to power and every power is a
centre of truth is the point of discourse analysis and part of a post-modern understanding of knowledge.
For Foucault the importance of discourse is its position at the interface of power and knowledge. Following Foucault (1972; Rabinow, 1991), discourse refers to a complex relationship between power and knowledge and a radical reading of subjectivity in the sense that through discourses individuals become ‘subjects’.
Discourse, then, is “the interplay of the rules that make possible the appearance of objects during a given period of time” (Foucault, 1972:33). Discourse analysis seeks to reveal the power relations which enable and are enabled by the discourses themselves. This is where Foucault’s contribution is important, because he explored the ways in which discursive orders come into being and thereby ‘normalise’ certain forms of subjectivity through a dualistic process of ‘Othering’.4
Following Foucault (1984:100), power-knowledge relationships are transmitted and produced through the medium of discourse. Foucault (1990) points out that we should not imagine a world of dominant and dominated, or accepted and excluded, discourses. Using the notion of the “tactical polyvalence of discourses”, Foucault argues that we should think instead of a:
“complex and unstable process whereby discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy” (Foucault, 1990:100-101).
Discourses produce power-knowledge relations that are characterised by inequality.
There are two tasks the intellectual in the narrow sense can perform. The first is to provide an analysis of the “specificity of the mechanisms of power” and to examine the intellectual assumptions and power structures which constitute the nexus within which the contending parties stake their claims (Foucault, 1980:145). The second task for the intellectual in the narrower sense is to develop an analysis and critique of what Foucault calls the “regime of truth”. Shiner explains:
“In Western societies, for example, ‘truth’ is centred in scientific discourse and institutions; it is central to economic production and political power; it is widely circulated; it is produced and disseminated by great economic and
4 Said’s (1995) Orientalism, for example, explicitly used Foucauldian discourse analysis to explore the ways in which imperial power and literary representations were bound together.
political apparatuses like the university, the media, or the army. In this system of truth there are many forms of excluded and subjected knowledge. Those who occupy the lowest status in various institutions or conditions of life – the patient, inmate, prisoner, welfare mother, labourer, student – all find their knowledge discounted. They are part of a system of power which invalidates their discourse, occasionally by blatant denial, but continuously by a set of implicit rules concerning what sorts of concepts and vocabulary are acceptable and what credentials and status are requisite for one’s discourse to count as knowledge” (Shiner, 1982:384; adapted from Foucault, 1977:207).
Every society, Foucault claims, has a kind of political economy of truth which says what kinds of discourse are true, what the mechanisms and sanctions are for distinguishing true from false, the techniques for acquiring truth and the status of those who are empowered to say what is true (Foucault, 1980:131). In The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, Foucault (1972) describes not only the way intellectual rules exclude some kinds of discourse and validate others, but also suggests how this order becomes an institutional exercise of power. For Foucault (1980:115), a discourse allows for certain ways of thinking about something and thereby excludes others. It is thus discourse, and not the individual subject, that produces knowledge – indeed the subject is the product of discourse. The discursive formations that transmit and produce power relations are potentially reversible:
“Discourse transmits and produces power, it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it” (Foucault, 1990:101).
In the post-apartheid era the new ICTs have come to acquire great power and dominance in the South African government’s development and poverty discourse.
This dissertation seeks to explore, through discourse analysis, the ways in which ICTs have come to dominate the development agenda by analysing the rise of the power of ICTs, its nature and the ways in which it operates in society. The study attempts to analyse in Foucauldian terms the manner in which the power of ICTs operates and to problematise the ways in which this informs the development agenda globally, but more specifically of the South African government in the post-apartheid era. The theoretical framework revolves around Michel Foucault’s path-breaking work on the exploration of the relationship between power and knowledge, and the discursive practices linked to these.
Discourse is not just words, and words are not “wind, an external whisper, a beating of wings that one has difficulty in hearing in the serious matter of history” (Foucault, 1972:209). Discourse is not the expression of thought; it is a practice, with conditions, rules and historical transformations. To analyse ICT, poverty and development as a discourse is to “show that to speak is to do something – something other than to express what one thinks” (Foucault, 1972:209). Changing the order of the discourse is a political question that entails the collective practice of social actors and the restructuring of existing political economies of truth. In the conclusion of his most complex work, The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972), Foucault wrote:
“A change in the order of discourse does not presuppose ‘new ideas’, a little invention and creativity, a different mentality, but transformations in a practice, perhaps also in neighbouring practices, and in their common articulation. I have not denied – far from it – the possibility of changing discourse” (Foucault, 1972:209).
This transformation demands not only a change in ideas and statements, but the formation of nuclei around which new forms of power and knowledge might converge. The central requirement for a more lasting transformation in the order of discourse is the breakdown of the basic organisation of the discourse, that is the appearance of new rules of formation of statements.
1.6 Methodology