Sunday, September 26, 2010

GS2321: Discourse Analysis

Maria Stern

This lecture explored discourse analysis as used by Maria Eriksson Baaz in her PhD dissertation and Maria Stern in the article, "Gender and Race in European Security Strategy: Europe as a Force for 'Good' ". Maria Stern said that both of these papers were posted on GUL but, unfortunately, I cannot find them.

Example 1: The Paternalism of Partnership by Maria Eriksson Baaz
- Interest/ Passion/ Curiosity
● donor identities within a post-colonial context
● donor identities and their manifestations
● How is development aid playing out in an African context?

-Research Problem
● How are donor identities constructed?
● How do aid workers see themselves in relation to their work with African partners in Tanzania?
● The above is relevant to development studies, aid, and post-colonialism and is both researchable and needed because it addresses gaps in the literature.

-Aim
● The construction of self in relationship to "partners".

-Methods
● Open-ended interviews of aid workers dealing with procedures and daily practices.
● Maria first created the interview texts and then used discourse analysis to analyze them.

-Theoretical underpinings
● Social constructivism
● Divisions between self and other
● The work of Stuart Hall who argues that identity is chosen as well as not chosen.
● Post-colonialism: Traces of colonial discourses are reproduced in current discourses.

-Delimitations
● The study is delimited via the theoretical underpinings.

-Operationalization
● Embedded in theories of post-colonialism
● It is possible to categorize identities such as how the self is represented through the other.

***Note: There is always a risk of finding what you are looking for.***

- Conclusions
● Discourses are complex and not simply post-colonial.
● Partnership neither replicates nor breaks from colonialism but is marked by a colonial past.

Example 2: ""Gender and Race in European Security Strategy: Europe as a Force for 'Good' " by Maria Stern

- Please see article.

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