Discourse and Materiality: Some methodological problems in a contextual study of the political role of a critical press in China

Discourse and Materiality: Some methodological problems in a contextual study of the political role of a critical press in China Elin Sæther Department of Sociology and Human Geography Introduction The topic of my PhD project is the development of a more critical press in China. This development takes place in a complex situation characterised by fast, but uneven, economic growth and a relative political stability. There is a great number of social actors taking part in this development, and they act in a situation inscribed with traditions and systems of social and political control. The great challenge is to understand how political changes, such as the development of a more critical press in China, take place, and how different actors draw on different resources in order to influence the way the media works. In my PhD project, I focus on the political role and character of critical press in China. To understand the political role of critical journalism in China today, it is necessary to explore the relationship between newspaper discourses, the political context for such discourses, in other words, the relationship between text and context. This means that I will have to examine the fundamental question of discourse and materiality as a precondition for the concrete investigation of critical journalism in China. Discourse and materiality belong to the extensive set of binary oppositions that structure our understanding of things. Discourse is associated with language and communication, either by written or spoken language. Materiality is associated with the concrete, observable world. This dichotomy is central in many approaches to the social sciences as it says something about where the sources of power are located and where social change takes place. The academic debate about this issue has been marked by the dichotomy between realism and constructionism. Critical realism s focus on ontology is expected to exclude a strong focus on discourse, while discourse analysis is seen as part of the post-modern focus on meaning, language, and narratives. In conflicts, representations of the other tend to be simplistic and polarised, academic and theoretical debates being no exception. In this essay I will examine the ways in which the issue of discourse and materiality has been treated within key literature on post-structuralist discourse analysis and critical realism. While not claiming that these are perfectly compatible and should be eclectically combined, I will nevertheless argue that the debate between them portray these positions as more incompatible and antagonistic than what can be found in the texts that I have chosen to focus on. In the first part of this essay, I will give a brief outline of my PhD project about the development of a critical press in China. My research questions are based on an assumption of the materiality of discourse, which means that there is no clear division between the material and discursive aspects of the social world. The following discussion will undermine 1

the opposition between discourse and materiality, while admitting that there are problems associated with eliminating the distinction as well. The second part of the essay introduces post-structuralist discourse analysis and its conception of discourses as material. I further present critical realism, focusing on critical realism s relationship to discourse, and how discourse comes into the realist ontology. Finally I discuss how Haraway s (1996) concept of situated knowledges might contribute to a less dichotomised understanding of discourse and materiality, and compensate for weaknesses in both discourse analysis and critical realism. A more critical press in China? The economic reforms have had great impacts upon Chinese society, including mass media. Newspapers have been commercialised as part of the reform process and a development towards a more critical press has taken place in the post-mao period. This critical press is characterised by being investigative and problem-oriented, critical journalists can identify social problems, flaws in current policies and they can highlight the need for reforms and sanctions against corrupt officials. The criticism that appears on print in Chinese news media is practical in orientation and focuses on specific issues dealing with concrete problems (Zhao 2000). In China, newspapers have never been regarded as an independent check on the government [Shambaugh, 1991 #1. Mao Zedong stated that the media should serve propaganda purposes and that journalists are to be the propagandists(de Burgh 2000). Newspapers were not intended to discuss the state and party in a critical way. They were supposed to be a mediating link between the state and the people. Political speeches were often printed in the news and discussed in the working units as part of the people s political education (Walder 1986; Lee 1990). The Communist Party has a tradition for critical journalism in their internal reference materials, but this was never meant for the general public. An article in the weekly magazine Beijing Review ( Mass Media Play Supervisory Role 11.01.99) describes critical journalism as a tool that contributes to the party s ability to carry out their policy in society. The article describes a situation where the central state encourages critical journalism to help the political centre to control the political periphery: The column [Social Observations] appears once a week, mainly carrying articles criticising certain local governments departments that infringe on the interests of the State and people. In addition, each article has an editor s note which explicitly expresses the newspaper s standpoint (Beijing Review 11.01.99) This is about the newspaper People s Daily, and the quote indicates that the Chinese political discourse on critical journalism differs quite a lot from the hegemonic western understanding of critical journalism. Critical journalism is presented as a means to get useful knowledge for the state. Chan (2002) has analysed the popular TV program Jiaodian Fangtan (Focus), which is broadcasted at China s main television channel CCTV, and he shows how critical journalism is carried out within strict limits. This 2

program is sent every day during prime time, and it features reports about social problems. The program receives 1000 written responses daily and is looked upon as a means of communication between the people and the government. Chan s analysis shows how the criticism is limited, that the lower levels of government is much more prone to be criticised, while the central government (above province/ministerial-level) is never criticised. This might imply that the development of a critical press is contributing to the central state s control over the local levels of the state. The need to control the lower levels of the state might be a consequence of a relative economic decentralisation in China. With socialism with Chinese characteristics, the lower state levels have a larger amount of self-governance than they had with the centrally planned economy. The economic reforms have pushed political decision-making and financial responsibility downward (Shue 1994). Therefore the journalists might play a useful role as government watchdogs, supervising local political actors and their practices. If the People s Daily keeps an eye on local government policies and contributes to discipline local politicians, this is in the interest of the state, but it might also be an advantage for the people living in the local communities. The project will have two main research questions. The first concerns the political role of critical journalism in Chinese newspapers, and is important in order to situate critical journalism in the Chinese press within a broader political context. The purpose is to carry out a critical and process oriented analysis of the power relations in which the press is embedded. The second question asks how critical articles are produced, brought forward and reacted upon. This question is the starting point for a discourse analysis of texts from Chinese newspapers and an analysis of their production and reception. This will be done through discourse analysis of a few cases from the Chinese press, interviews with journalists and editors involved in the case and, if possible, interviews with other people involved in the case. Discourse analysis Discourse analysis and critical realism are both post-marxist approaches to the philosophy of science. They represent two attempts to break with social determinism and economic reductionism, and they stand in opposition to positivist research. Discourse analysis is characterised by a strong focus on how we construct the world through language. This stands in opposition to positivist social research, where language simply refers to the world as it is (Neumann 2001). Positivist approaches to science are criticised for treating language as an unproblematic medium for conveying knowledge. Within linguistics, discourse analysis represented a move away from system oriented linguistic research (Jørgensen and Phillips 1999). In structuralism, the use of language was seen as an instantiation of the language structure, langue in Saussurian terms. To study the use of language in itself, was parallel to the study of culture in Marxist social science, it was part of the superstructure and had no explanatory power in itself. Language use mirrored the language system, just as culture and politics mirrored the economic structures. Discourse 3

analysis undermines the strong division between langue and parole, because language use is treated as constitutive, not only as generated by the system. Discourse analysis is part of a broad range of criticism against reducing certain aspects of society to mere reflections of deeper structures or systems. Theses criticisms are not new, Volosinov criticised the relationship between basis and superstructure in his book Marxism and the Philosophy of Language published in 1929. Gramsci s understanding of the concept of hegemony has been central for the development of marxist and post-marxist approaches to politics (Gramsci 1971). Discourse analysis opens up for studying how language is used to construct identities and social relations, but the question about what discourse is and how to work with discourse have a range of different answers. Two main approaches to discourse analysis are Fairclough s critical discourse analysis and Laclau and Mouffe s discourse theory. Fairclough s critical discourse analysis throws light on the linguistic-discursive dimension of cultural and social phenomena. The critical dimension is central in Fairclough s work, he wants to analyse how power relations result in particular discourses (Fairclough 1992) Fairclough does not agree that the social world is a discursive construction, and he argues that the relation between discourse and the material world is dialectical. Ideally, discourse analysis should be carried out according to a three-dimensional model where texts constitute the first level, text production the intermediate level, and where the socio-cultural sphere is the third level of the model. The dividing line between discourse and the material world goes between the second and the third level, and they require different theoretical approaches. Laclau and Mouffe (2001), on the other hand, do not treat the material world as extra-discursive, but see discourse as material. Their discourse theory is based on an understanding of discourse as inherently political, because the ability to define the meaning of things is decisive for the construction of the social world. The meaning of social phenomena is always relationally constructed. Our conceptualisation of a phenomenon expresses what it is, but also what it is not. Discourse theory does not exclusively focus on texts, but emphasises the semiotic mediation of knowledge and the central position of language in the construction of the social world. As mentioned, the concept of discourse has a wide variety of interpretations. Laclau and Mouffe (2001) define it as the result of a process where the meanings of signs are defined in relation to each other, such that their identity is modified. This definition focuses on the horizontal dimension, the relation between signs, not between the sign and its referent. Their understanding of the relation between sign and referent has its background in saussurian structuralist theory. Saussure s work deals with how words become meaningful (Smith 1998). He focuses on the synchronic dimension of the language system. The language system is made up of signs that combine a medium side and a message side: the signifier and the signified. The medium can be a sound image, a visual image or a written word, and it carries a message. The relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary, which means that any phenomenon could in principle be worded in an unlimited number of ways (Saussure 4

1986). Discourse analysis draws on the saussurean understanding of the arbitrary nature of the relationship between signifier and signified, but as already mentioned, it breaks with the understanding of the language system as a fixed totality and the unidirectional relationship between langue and parole. The stability of discourse One argument against post-structuralist theory is that it claims that meaning changes overnight. The arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified is associated with an instability of language, that does not correspond with our experience of language use. In everyday life we perceive meaning as relatively stable (Sayer 2000). For Laclau and Mouffe (2001), meaning is in principle always changeable, since it is not locked to a referent. However, because discourses are material, they are relatively stable. Foucault emphasises that discourse is resistant towards change, because it is embedded in institutions and institutional practice (Schaanning 1997). Within academic institutions, it is now widely accepted to claim that the nation state is socially constructed, but this does not mean that the nation state can be wiped out with a sentence, as it is embedded in a whole range of institutional practices. In post-structuralist discourse theory, discourse and power is closely connected. The concept of hegemony is central in Laclau and Mouffes (2001) discourse theory, and builds on Gramsci s work. Gramsci started to develop the concept of hegemony in line with the Leninist concept of class alliance. The concept of class alliance means that one class is including the interests of its allied classes in its policies. The class alliance builds on preconstituted interests, and the alliance as such do not generate common interests. Hegemony differs from class alliance because it expresses something more than political leadership, as it includes intellectual and moral leadership. Hegemony requires an ensemble of common values shared between classes. The intellectual and moral leadership constitutes a collective will that unifies the different classes through ideology. Ideology is not associated with false consciousness, but is an expression for the naturalised hegemonic discourse. Laclau and Mouffe use the term objective instead of ideology to avoid connotations to false consciousness. Hegemony is material and it is embodied in institutions. This understanding of ideology breaks with the basis/superstructure division, as ideology cannot simply be seen as part of the superstructure (Laclau and Mouffe 2001) Discourse theory breaks with Gramsci in its perception of the importance of class. For Gramsci, there must always be a single unifying principle in every hegemonic formation, and this principle is class. In discourse theory, social groups are not predefined, and Laclau and Mouffe operate with a broad range of possible subject positions that are not restricted to class belonging. The social has no essence, but is the outcome of a process of articulation that shapes and organises social relations. Articulations establish relations between signs, in the same way as the relation between signifier and signified makes it possible for us to communicate. While Saussure argued that the system, once constructed, could close, Laclau and Mouffe claim that articulations function as if the system was closed. The practice of 5

articulation can partially fix meaning, but the openness of the social leads to a constant overflowing of meaning, which is followed by new articulations. Discourses are the result of our attempts to create social order, because they limit the spectre of possible meanings. Signs having a fixed meaning are called moments, while elements are signs whose identities remain unclear and ambiguous. Through new articulations, the undefined can become fixed meaning. What is originally outside the discourse can be included in the discourse, and the relations between signs can be changed. Outside every discourse there is a field of discursivity, representing a surplus of meaning. This field is important for the constitution of every social practice, because it represents all possible alternative understandings of what we are doing. The absence of meaning is as necessary for our understanding of an object, as the presence of meaning. Hegemony and power are based on the incompleteness of discourse, if discourses could close, there would be no need for hegemony. If our understanding of a topic could never could be challenged by new moments, new articulations would never take place and the meaning would remain the same. Hegemony is a result of the fight to freeze meaning, by making it natural and objective. Any discourse is an attempt to dominate the field of discursivity, and to create stable meaning by constructing a centre. Some signs become more important than others, they are nodal points, which other signs are organised around (Laclau and Mouffe 2001). The nation is a nodal point in our culture, and we understand state systems, politics, identities and cultures in relation to the concept of the nation. The relation between the floating field of discursivity and the partially fixed discourse is the starting point for the understanding of politics in Laclau and Mouffe s discourse theory. Discourses are political in the sense that they make some understandings of the social possible, and exclude others. Their concept of power is quite similar to Foucault s notion of power, not as something possessed by some groups in society, but as the force that makes meaning possible (Foucault 1990). A discourse becomes hegemonic when it is naturalised and when people accept it as the normal way of understanding things. The limits of discourse Discourse theory does not presuppose that language is everything, but it is sceptical to the idea of a privileged, direct access to the social world. This access is semiotically mediated. Discourse theory not only objects to the basis/superstructure distinction, but also the real/thought opposition. Laclau and Mouffe (2001) argue that discourse theory does place itself in neither an idealist or a realist approach, because they do claim that there is a material, real world existing independently of our concepts about it, but that we cannot make sense of it without language. Also physical, real phenomena have unlimited potential meanings. Earthquakes have been understood as a punishment from angry gods, but they can also be explained by modern science. The earthquake is a real phenomenon, in a material world. Our understanding of it, however, is mediated through language. In discourse theory this serves as an example of the relationship between the material world and discourse, the division 6

between the two aspects of reality becomes less important since our understanding and studies of social phenomena always will be studies of the world as it is constituted through language. The real/though opposition is dissolved also because discourses are material in the sense that they are built into institutions. Our discourse about children as a special segment of the population is embedded in schools and kindergartens, and we do not longer consider the option of treating children as little grownups, a discourse that was quite common a few hundred years ago (Jørgensen and Phillips 1999). Our discourse about childhood can serve as an example of an objective discourse as it has become naturalised. Discourse theory and empirical research Public critical journalism in China is a new phenomenon that might destabilise an order of discourse. New topics are written about, which challenge the existing notion of what the Chinese society and its newspapers are like. An example in case is corruption. Corruption has probably been a problem long before it became a topic in the media. As corruption became a possible topic in the news, the discourse about the Chinese state had to be rearticulated to include critical articles about corruption. In the terms of discourse theory, corruption was an element without a defined content. If newspapers were going to treat this topic it had to become a moment with a defined meaning that would fit into the order of discourse (Laclau and Mouffe 2001). The solution was an articulation that connected corruption to individual greed, and stressed the fact that the state sanctioned corruption. Different forms of critical journalism might demand more profound changes to make criticism seem as a natural part of the discursive hegemony. This process is already taking place and one way it is done is through representing critical journalism as a tool to make the state more responsive and to secure the legitimacy of the Communist party of China. The changes concerning what can and cannot be said in the media opens up also for other social actors, groups and individuals who want to express their case. Critical realism During the last twenty years, there has been a serious engagement among human geographers with the philosophy of critical realism. This engagement can be seen as a result of the criticism against Marxist philosophy of science, combined with a reaction against postmodernist and post-structuralist approaches. Critical realism is closely associated with the works of Bhaskar, and Sayer has been central in translating Bhaskar s philosophical work. Critical realism has become a common approach in Human Geography and I base my discussion mainly on Sayer s work, since his work has been decisive for human geographer s understanding of critical realism. Critical realism takes as its starting point that there is a real world existing independently of our notions of it, and Bhaskar asks how this world has to be in order to make it possible for us to achieve knowledge about it. The ontological question is the starting point, not the epistemological question about how knowledge is possible (Danermark, Ekström et al. 1997). The answer is that in order for us to gain knowledge about the world, the world has to contain more than we can observe with our senses. This breaks with positivist approaches to social science, where scientific knowledge is understood as identification of observable empirical regularities. 7

The critical realist ontology has three layers, the empirical, the actual and the real or deep. We make our observations at the empirical level, and what we see will be influenced by our concepts about the world. Our observations cannot be conflated with the events, because events take place independent of our observations. Events are positioned at the actual level. Structures and mechanisms constitute the deep layer in the realist ontology. They are real and abstract, but this is not a contradiction within critical realism, because the world exists independently of our perceptions. Structures and mechanisms work even though we cannot see them, and can be identified through abstraction. Natural sciences as well as social science should not be studied in an empiricist way, because science cannot be limited to the observable. Natural sciences and social sciences share the same ontology. Critical realism not only criticises how methods from the natural sciences have been transferred to the social sciences, but also critically examines the way natural sciences are understood. Natural sciences are also working with open systems. This does not mean that there are no differences between studying social structures and natural sciences, Bhaskar emphasises that social structures operate in a different way from natural structures and mechanisms (Bhaskar 1989). Structures Empirical regularities do not explain why something is happening, neither how it is possible. The lack of qualitative questions in quantitative social science is a problem because statistical relationships are not sufficient explanations. To be able to understand and explain why workers do go on strike, structures, causal relationships and the contingent relations that make it happen, have to be identified (Sayer 1992). This can be done through abstraction, which is a method that isolates, in thought, a one-sided or partial aspect of an object. Abstraction is central for the identification of structures, which are defined as sets of internally related objects or practices. Structures exist independently of our knowledge about them, and they cannot be reduced to the individuals who compose them. Within structures there are social positions, such as the worker position in a capitalist society. This position has certain characteristics that do not change even though the individual worker occupying the position becomes an entrepreneur and starts his own business. The concept of structure does not only include the great structures, such as the international division of labour, but also the minor structures of internally related objects and practices, such as the landlord-tenant structure. Structures can also be non-social, as the relation between nerve impulses and physical movements. Social structures are endurable, but only as long as they are being reproduced. Structures are seldom reproduced intentionally, the reproduction of capitalist economy is the unintended consequence of people continuing to work. It is necessary for social science to identify structures by means of abstraction, but the identification of internally related objects does not explain their origin. Social structures are historically specific, and their origins have to be explained by contingent factors. Causation As is always the case with metaphysical issues, particular interpretations can only be justified in terms of their compatibility with our most reliable beliefs, and this will be my tactic in defending a realist stance on this issue (Sayer 1992:103). The main argument for the critical realist view of causation is that we cannot do without it. We use terms such as produces, creates and makes it happen all the time in our daily 8

language, and we express cause and effect when we use sentences such as they built the house. Transitive verbs are simple causal descriptions. This is to say that causation is compatible with some of our most reliable beliefs, we express causative relationships, and we would find it very hard to manage without them. However, critical realism does move away from the view of causation as a cause and effect relationship between discrete events. The realist understanding of causation builds on the causal powers or liabilities in the objects themselves. Human beings have the ability to walk due to the way the body is made, so the causal power is built into the body. The same goes for the ability to work, but the event is dependent on the availability of work. Hence, causation is contingent, because the causal powers often depend on a range of contingent factors for the results. Causation is depending on the nature of the objects, and since objects change, the causal powers are not fixed essences, but changeable. Doing causal analysis means to identify the causal powers, or mechanisms that explain how an event can take place. Causality is not necessarily limited to material causes. Ideas, beliefs and reasons do also have causal status within the realist ontology. Sayer s argument is that if reasons, beliefs and ideas did not have causal powers, there would be no need to evaluate reasons or to criticise beliefs. Reasons are not necessarily true, but can nevertheless be causes. Non-material phenomena do have causal powers, but the actions they cause presuppose conditions such as material resources and social structures. Social structures do include conventions, rules and systems of meanings. Structures can also be altered by political changes, such as land expropriation and revolutionary policies. This means that discourse can be included on every level of the critical realist ontology, as part of structures, as events and as a necessary aspect of our observations at the empirical level. But beliefs can be wrong, and it is possible to replace wrong beliefs with right ones. The point of critical social science s attempt to reduce illusion in society is to change its effects, not merely to provide an academic critique of an external description of society (Sayer 1992:111). The power of language Critical realism takes a negative view of social constructionism and idealist positions. For realists, there is a real world that can be studied and there are real structures and mechanisms to be identified by abstraction. Social constructionists often deny the charge of idealism and acknowledge the existence of a real world independent of their constructions, but the use of the hopelessly misleading metaphor of construction invites idealist slippage, for it evades the question of the relationship of our social constructions to the nature of their referents. They might further insist that social constructions such as institutions are real, but if they also assume that they must be identical to what their constitutive discourses construe them as, then they slip back into idealism by transposing foundationalism into social ontology by projecting it onto actors. (Sayer 2000:92) Sayer writes: there is no contradiction involved in accepting both that there is a world existing independently of our thoughts and that we can only know what it is like from within discourse (Sayer 2000:41). What is the consequence of this statement for critical realism? To what extent does the realist ontology take into consideration the influence of language on our understanding of society? One of the premises in critical realism is that the world exists independently of our knowledge of it. Idealism is criticised, firstly because of its tendency to doubt everything. Scepticism is not possible unless there is some knowledge that is regarded as more certain. The lack of any 9

common ground would render all communication impossible. Second, just as naïve objectivism viewed facts and representations as unproblematic, idealism can also be accused for conflating language and the real, but the other way around. Idealism collapses thought and its objects when idealists claim that the world is constructed. In contrast to this, Sayer emphasises that knowledge is fallible, the common experience of making empirical errors, of mistaking the nature of the world, supports rather than undermines realism (Sayer 1992:67). Here it seems that Sayer understands constructionism as a belief in the unlimited power of language. He objects to this belief and writes that the world does not change simultaneous with our concepts of it, because our imagination meets resistance from the material world. His argument is that if constructionists were right, knowledge could not be fallible, since the results would be part of the researcher s constructions. In contrast, critical realism acknowledges that researchers knowledge is fallible, but not equally fallible. One of the major arguments against positivism has been that positivists view observation as neutral (Smith 1998). Sayer claims that postmodernists have replaced the positivist view of observation as theory- neutral with a tendency to view theory as observation-neutral. This means that there is no way the real can infringe on our concepts of it, something everybody knows cannot be true. Critical realism understands observation as theory-laden. Sayer focuses on the interaction of human beings with the material world. Interaction between humans and nature tells us that even though we believe we are able to walk on water, if we try and observe, we will see that it is not possible. Our concepts are important for what we see, but they do not determine the result of our observations. Relativism Sayer (2000) writes that critical realism accepts epistemic relativism, but not judgemental relativism. Epistemic relativism means that the world is only accessible through discourse, while judgemental relativism implies that one cannot judge between different discourses, and that it is impossible to evaluate some accounts as better than others. Critical realism is critical towards judgemental relativism, and Sayer cites Hitler and Mussolini as examples of practitioners of relativist philosophy. He argues that relativists are close- minded, because they are not open to reality checks. Relativism attracts naïve and benign students who are afraid of making judgements and who confuse the egalitarian status of empirical views with the principle of equality regarding the moral worth of persons. If this were not enough; relativism is actually impossible and meaningless: regarding false consciousness, objectable though such a notion may seem, it is inescapable, for its refusal involves a performative contradicition: you are falsely conscious in believing in the possibility of false consciousness (Sayer 2000:48). This argument is meant to show that judgemental relativism is self-contradictory, because to refute the concept of false consciousness, you have to make a non-relativist statement that breaks with the relativist position stating that every statement as equally true. Real relativists would also face innumerable dangers in their daily lives: However, those who claim that reality is a discursive construct don t believe what they say, for their practice - for example avoiding extra-discursive dangers, such as oncoming cars shows that they cannot make the world a slave to their discourses (Sayer 2000:39). I think Sayer is right in his suggestion that most relativist would move away for such things as oncoming cars, but I doubt the value of this criticism, because there is no possibility of disagreeing with Sayer in his arguments. Fast oncoming cars are dangerous, and Mussolini 10

and Hitler are in no sense someone social scientist would identify their theoretical positions with. Critical realism accepts epistemic relativism, but the consequences of this view seem rather unclear. What difference does it make to critical realism that it rejects an absolutist view of truth? Foucault, who writes about regimes of truth, and who claims that truth has its own history, is criticized by Sayer. He argues that Foucault s own discourse cannot be trustworthy when Foucault s argument is that truth is relative to the historical and social context. It seems that Sayer is making evaluations of contributions according to the absolutist concept of truth, which he has already rejected. The power/knowledge connection is central in discourse theory and in Foucault s work. Foucault shows that scientific knowledge has been central in the development of psychiatric institutions and prisons (Foucault 1995), and Sayer criticises this assumption because it reduces epistemological authority to a matter of social authority (Sayer 2000). That means that the power/knowledge connection is understood as if the power to define truth corresponded with economic and political power. The problem with this interpretation of Foucault is that Sayer bases his understanding of the power/knowledge connection on a concept of power conceived as a possession. Foucault s concept of power differs from the traditional understanding of power. Power, in foucauldian terms, is productive, and it is present and necessary for upholding social relations (Foucault 1990). The close association between power and knowledge does not mean that knowledge is always repressive, but that power is an integrated aspect of knowledge, which of course can be used for repressive means. There are two main problems that can be emphasised in Sayer s account of relativism. On one hand, judgemental relativism is presented as such an extreme and meaningless position that there is little reason to believe that any social theorist would identify with this position and defend it in a way consistent with Sayer s critique. On the other hand, the consequences of accepting epistemic relativism remain unclear. Critical realism includes ideas and representations as part of the real, but critical realism remains anti-constructionist. The real versus discursive construction Discourse analysis and critical realism are both anti-positivist approaches to social science. They are characterised by an anti-foundationalist view of knowledge, which Sayer (1992) conceptualises as epistemic relativism. Our knowledge of the world is mediated through language, and we have no direct access to the world as it is. Discourse theory and critical realism draw quite different conclusions from their stance on epistemic relativism. In discourse theory, the way we use language to construct the world around us becomes the main object of study. Politics is conceived as the fight over meaning, and power is associated with the ability to define social phenomena. In critical realism, language and representations are seen as causes, and they are part of the real. Sayer (2000) emphasises that the material world sets limits to our understanding of the real, since our knowledge of the real is fallible. Nevertheless, it is important to stress that discourse theory and critical realism share the underlying assumption of a material world existing independently of our knowledge of it, and that the only way we can grasp it is through language. Sayer makes a distinction between epistemic and judgemental relativism, and criticises the view that one cannot judge between different discourses and decide that some accounts are better than others (Sayer 2000:47). There are two (at least) ways of interpreting judgemental relativism. The first is that everything is floating and that all statements are equally true, which means that there is no concept of truth. The second interpretation will be that there is no fixed scale to evaluate discourses against. This is in line with discourse theory, as Laclau 11

and Mouffe (2001) state that discourses can never be closed, they are always in danger of being subverted by the field of discursivity. But critical realism does agree that there cannot be any foundation for knowledge, there is no Archimedean point where analyses can be anchored. Still, Sayer wants to keep the possibility of judging one statement as more true than others. I do not find that discourse theory necessarily goes against this. Laclau and Mouffe criticise main contributions in the Marxist tradition in an attempt to demonstrate that the division between base and superstructure is reductionist. They argue that discourse theory is a better tool for analysing politics than traditional Marxism, but admit that their own arguments are situated in a discourse, and thereby changeable. Sayer (1992, 2000) can be criticised for not considering the consequences of epistemic relativism to a greater extent than he does. The other way around, Laclau and Mouffe (2001) can be accused of not taking into consideration what the external, real world does in relation to discourse: is it open to any discourse? Haraway s (1996) concept of situated knowledges might offer a possible middle road between the two approaches. Haraway (1996) writes from a feminist position, which is formed by its criticism of malestream science. Traditional science has been characterised by an unmarked objectivity, in contrast to women s marked subjectivity. A central part of the feminist project has been to identify the biases of science and to show how binary oppositions have been used to construct women in a subordinate subject position. The subaltern s narratives were an answer to this, stories that were supposed to show how the real word was. Haraway is critical towards to both the malestream science and to feminist s attempt at telling true stories, and she conceptualises this criticism by using the term vision. Malestream objectivism and feminist relativist subjectivity share the same problem in the sense that they can be seen as speaking from nowhere. Haraway argues that the idea of a neutral, objective vision is impossible, and that vision is never passive, because our eyes are active perceptual systems. It is possible to speak of objectivity, but only as situated knowledge. Haraway s concept of objectivity as situated knowledge does take the discursive construction of the real into consideration, but emphasises that the real is not a blank page for social inscriptions. She writes: accounts of a real world do not, then, depend on a logic of discovery, but on a power-charged social relation of conversation (Haraway 1996:125). Social construction, in this sense, is not a process carried out without limits or resistance, but it is a power-laden process of communication. This is relevant for both discourse theory and critical realism, as it suggests a way by which aspects of their respective theoretical achievements can be combined. The vocabulary developed within discourse theory is useful for studying, among other things, the development of a critical press in China. At the same time, the critical realist ontology and its no-nonsense use of a concept like truth is useful, because it encourages reflection about causation and the links between social structures and agency. Both approaches need the concept of situated knowledge, because our analyses can never be carried out outside discourse. I started out writing this essay with an impression of critical realism and discourse theory as theoretical opposites. I have reached the conclusion that they are not. The focus is different, but they do agree on several basic points. I have suggested that Haraway s (1996) concept of situated knowledges could improve both theoretical approaches, because it combines discursive constructionism with a critical sense of the limits of discourse. Discourse and materiality should not be conceived as a dichotomy. For my project about the political role of a critical press in China, it is necessary to focus on the materiality of discourse. At the same 12

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