Zona de Comercio Puntual (ZCP)

To understand why FDA was chosen as the most appropriate way of exploring these ideas, it is necessary to understand the work of Michel Foucault and its influence on FDA.

FDA is inspired by Foucault’s historical studies of discursive practices. Foucault refers to ‘discourse’ not as a particular language use or piece of text, but as the rules and systems of a particular body of knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such knowledge and the relations between them (Weedon, 1987). FDA does not seek to understand the true nature of psychological phenomena, but rather the ways in which particular versions of phenomena are constructed through language (Willig, 2013). The discourses that construct these phenomena are, as defined by Foucault, a form of power that circulate in the social world which can attach to strategies of domination as well as resistance (Diamond and Quinby, 1988). This definition of discourse was a key consideration in the design of this study which explored which dominant discourses were reflected in teachers’ talk about literature, if any, and whether these were resisted and/or transformed, if at all. The discourse of literature was explored in policy with the same aim. Foucault was interested in how knowledge, power and discourse are connected

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(Foucault, 1990; Carabine, 2001) and in exploring the discursive construction of literature, this study was interested in the same thing.

Discourses are bound up with social practices and material realities – a ‘top-down’ approach (Brunton et al., 2014). For example, the discourse of literature is a powerful discourse in

contemporary classrooms. It has an array of ‘subject positions’ (Willig, 2001) including the teacher and the students, and it entails practical implications for individuals who use this discourse.

Of particular importance was the understanding that FDA is not a theory of the subject, instead it explains the positioning of the subject within relations of power. This is because power is not the possession of the individual, but it operates through the individual by acting upon their actions (Foucault, 1982). The subject is not a ‘thing’ but a ‘position’ maintained within relations of force. These positionings are contradictory and discontinuous; they are not pre-existing roles: they are emergent. The subjects are not discourses nor are they determined by them: because power acts on possible actions, there is always the opportunity for the subject to act ‘otherwise’ (Foucault, 1982). As a consequence, FDA assumes that there is no one world that can be described and studied, instead there are numerous versions of the world each of which is constructed through discourses and practices, none of which is dominant (Gillies & Willig, 1998).

The knowledge that FDA aims to foster is to ‘map the discursive worlds people inhabit and to trace possible ways-of-being afforded by them’ (Willig, 2013, p.138). Discourses facilitate and limit, and enable and constrain what can be said, by whom it can be said, where, and when (Parker, 1992). In talk, people construct and reflect social activities through actions that invoke identity, ideology, belief, and power (Willig, 2013). They do this through semiotic systems (Ortega, 2008), which for the purposes of this research were related to words and talk, as opposed to images, for example. Foucauldian Discourse analysts focus on the availability of the discursive resources that participants employ in order to perform these actions (Willig, 2013). By framing what participants do in

discursive practices as ‘resources’, the emphasis is on how participants in this discourse achieve their goals for the interaction, goals such as a conscious desire to persuade or resist another participant, or to accept or reject a proposed action, for example (Willig, 2013), through their language.

Furthermore, this study drew on Foucauldian understandings of positionings. The term ‘positioning’ is used as opposed to ‘role’ as it articulates a more fluid and dynamic sense of a potentially multiple self and how these ‘selves’ are actively constructed (Pinkus, 1996). A ‘role’ leaves little room for capturing the more subtle and complex aspects of interaction (Davies and Harre, 1990). In seeking to understand how these positions, and the subjective nature of them, were ‘precarious, contradictory and in process’ then change becomes possible as different meanings can be ascribed to experiences,

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a poststructuralist ‘decentring of the subject’ (Weedon, 1987, p.33). This recognises that social identities are ‘discursively constructed in historically specific social contexts’ and that they ‘shift over time’ (Fraser, 1992, p.178). This understanding related to the potential for change in future teaching practice.

Thus, FDA was chosen as both method and methodology, rather than any other versions of

discourse analysis because it was concerned with language and language use beyond its immediate contexts within which language may be used by speaking subjects (Willig, 2013). Of the proposed ‘six traditions of discourse analysis’ as summarised by Morgan (2010), discursive psychology could also have been considered as an approach for this study as it incorporates Foucauldian principles.

However, as the name suggests, it is more concerned with discourse and language in psychology and the challenge of psychological phenomena such as identity, memory, personality, and attitude. Equally, critical discourse analysis could have been used to illustrate a desire for positive political change through an exploration of social processes and social change. Limitations of this method are its lack of philosophical roots (Haig, 2004), a lack of reflexivity (Billig, 2002), and of most interest, the ‘largely negative nature of work produced within the field of CDA’ (Martin, 2004). Therefore, FDA was chosen because of its exploration of disciplinary power from the philosophical perspective of Foucault and how it operated through institutional apparatus. This approach considered there to be multiple versions of events, a social constructionist theory of representation and meaning, and explored how discourse constructs subject positions: a primary interest. Ultimately, FDA was seen to be the most appropriate framework for a critical analysis of the positioning of policy and practice in the teaching of GCSE English literature, within the social theory of Foucault.