Discourse Analysis 2

This post will pursue the last one, explaining Rose’s (2001) discourse analysis 2. It is related to discourse analysis 1, especially as they share a concern about power and knowledge, but they produce different kind of researches. As a reminder, DA1 focuses mostly in visual images and written or spoken texts. Instead of fully concentrating on social positions and authority, it emphasis the production and rhetorical organisation of different materials (Rose, 2001). Now, DA2 focuses on similar materials being more focused on the production of institutions and their practises.

The analysis of different institutions is based like on texts, historical sources and interviews. Photographs and visual images are important to illustrate the room, display or building but also architecture, design and decorations. Observing the workers and visiting people in the institution is important telling about the social behaviour. Rose explains the difference between these two discourses can be defined through the study on archive. In DA1 its investigating the collection of data and its reformation, which has indirect effect on the institutions’ authorities and DA2 focus on the archive itself and how its classification practises provide knowledge (2001).

Foucault explains that new professions need the punishments, calling it the ‘docile body’ that confronts the obligations (2001). The main point he makes, is a new way of punishment where the bodies discipline themselves through visuals. It is demonstrated with Bentham’s plan for an institution, a ‘panopticon’ (p. 166), which can be used for all kinds of institutions like prisons, schools and hospitals. There is only one supervisor in the tower, but the prisoners cannot see when they are watched: They must behave properly all the time. This means there is a constant visibility automatizing the function of power, according to Foucault, and the surveillance produce social order. Foucault’s essential idea is that institutions work in two ways through their apparatus and technologies (p. 167). Rose also uses these distinctions but having clearer concepts. An institutional apparatus (p. 167) is the form of power and knowledge constituting the institutions, like architecture and regulations. The institutional technologies, Rose argues, can be hard to distinguish from the apparatus. They are the practical techniques to practise the power and knowledge as tools and methods. Essentiality to this approach is clear as they turn away from the details of individual images to the process of production. The limitations of this approach are ignoring the images themselves, not focusing on conflicts in the institution and the knowledge what visitors bring to the institutions (p. 186). Therefore, DA2 does not have reflexive strategies neither it seems often be interested in the contradictions (p. 186).

As an example, I visited the Boekhandel Dominicanen in Maastricht, which is a unique bookstore located in an old gothic church founded in 1294. After 1794, it stopped its religious purposes and became a town archive with multiple functions. In 2005, it got its current form as a bookstore. From the perspective of DA2, there are general rules in the institution, which are enforced by other visitors and workers as ‘guards’ in the store, but also visuals with video cameras. For example: Eating is only allowed in the café of Coffee Lovers in the back of the church, to make people stay there longer. Also, music is played in the store so the shoppers are not allowed to play their own music, creating a relaxing ambiance. The storage and offices are spaces behind the store, which are not seen in public and there are organised the products by curators and managers (p. 181). Rose highlights their importance, which is often ignored in Foucauldian method.

People are free to walk around as they want but the technological layout of the room affects to it: People follow the signs, like the genres of the books, which are ordered by alphabet and language in the shelves called ‘spatial routeing’ (Rose, 2001). Also, the overview map of the stores in the front illustrates this. In the store this is obvious through the different sections, like the books are downstairs with magazines and upstairs are the music and the related literature. It is important to recognize that the shoppers’ knowledge and opinions about the books effect to their wandering in the store. Museums produce visitors as eyes to only look the works but the stores courage to look and also touch the books, putting them on the tables (2001). Part of the institutional apparatus is the architecture and decoration of the rooms (2001) that attract people enter the store, such as the gothic architecture. It is claimed to be one of the most beautiful ones in the Netherlands.

The entrance of the bookstore (Aldershoff, 2013).
An overview of the bookstore (Aldershoff, 2013).
The organisation of the books (Aldershoff, 2013).
The Coffee Lovers in the back of the store (Aldershoff, 2013).

The architecture and design of the church has art on the walls and big decorative but colourful windows and a chandelier, which are highlighted against the high and grey stone walls. It creates interesting outlook, which is coherent but also unsymmetrical (p.179). The entrance of store is impressive with the huge doors, and people seemingly behave calm like in a church, taking many pictures. Churches used to pass over the knowledge with pictures and speeches, but now also through texts. It could be said that churches have a similar way of surveillance than schools and prisons.

References

Aldershoff, R. (2013). A overview of the bookstore. [image]. Retrieved from http://www.nationaltraveller.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=251:selexyz-dominicanen-bookstore.

Aldershoff, R. (2013). Coffee lovers in the back of the store. [image]. Retrieved from http://www.nationaltraveller.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=251:selexyz-dominicanen-bookstore.

Aldershoff, R. (2013). Organisation of the books. [image]. Retrieved from http://www.nationaltraveller.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=251:selexyz-dominicanen-bookstore.

Aldershoff, R. (2013). The entrance of the bookstore. [image]. Retrieved from http://www.nationaltraveller.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=251:selexyz-dominicanen-bookstore.

Kim, S. (2016, March 4). Boekhandel Dominicanen, the Most Beautiful Bookstore in the World. Retrieved from http://www.talesfromafork.com/boekhandel-dominicanen-the-most-beautiful-bookstore-in-the-world/.

Rose, G. (2001). Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials. London: Sage. (Chapter 7: Discourse Analysis II: Institutions and Ways of Seeing).

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