**Abstract**

This paper presents an overview of the methodological approach taken in a recently completed Foucauldian discourse analysis of physiotherapy practice. In keeping with other approaches common to postmodern research this paper resists the temptation to define a proper or 'correct' interpretation of Foucault's methodological oeuvre; preferring instead to apply a range of Foucauldian propositions to examples drawn directly from the thesis. In the paper I elucidate on the blended archaeological and genealogical approach I took and unpack some of the key imperatives, principles and rules I grappled with in completing the thesis.

**Key Words** archaeology, Foucault, genealogy, methodology, physiotherapy

# Putting Foucault to work: an approach to the practical application of Foucault's methodological imperatives

DAVID A. NICHOLLS

## Introduction

Over the last 30 years, ‘Foucauldian’ discourse analysis has become a well respected and much used philosophical, theoretical and methodological approach across a wide range of disciplines including architecture, communication theory, cultural studies, gender studies, health care, management studies, philosophy, and the social sciences.[1-5] Derek Hook wrote of a ‘veritable explosion of discursive analytic work’,[6] while Michael Arribas-Ayllon and Valerie Walkerdine recently spoke of the emergence of Foucauldian discourse analysis as an ‘expansive and diffuse field’ within qualitative research.[7] (Like many scholars who have been influenced by Foucault’s ideas, I am uncomfortable with the

notion of ‘Foucauldian’ discourse analysis since this runs counter to one of Foucault’s founding principles. It is used here only out of a desire to avoid an otherwise cumbersome grammatical sentence structure).

Amidst the excitement that Foucault’s iconoclastic approach has generated a ‘proliferation of the various models of the process of discourse analysis’ have emerged,[6] resulting in a diverse array of methods, approaches and study designs which draw from Foucault’s own methodological injunction that we should always ‘slip away’ from closed, predefined methodological and intellectual work.[8] Foucault himself vehemently resisted any attempt to constrain the breadth and scope of his thinking with convenient labels or ready references to pre-existing norms and methodological conventions, arguing that to do so undercut the analytic possibilities of his approach.[9]

Postmodern and poststructural approaches to research are typically sceptical of the rational certainty and logical tidiness of empiricism, the authorial dominance of herme-
neutics, and the saturating absolutism of historiography. Foucault, for his part, criticized a number of other theoretical approaches for ignoring the material implications of knowledge and power.[6] In undertaking a form of discourse analysis informed by Foucault's ideas one must try, therefore, to avoid 'the trap of formalizing an approach that clearly eschews formalization', and recognise 'that there are no set rules or procedures for conducting Foucauldian-inspired analyses of discourse'.[7] Rather than seeing this as an 'ad hoc, fragmentary and incomplete' approach,[10] or as a form of shoddy science,[11] postmodern scholars – like all qualitative researchers – are encouraged to develop an approach that retains a coherent connection between the texts and the theoretical presuppositions underlying the study. At times this point has been missed by researchers deploying a postmodern approach who use the umbrella of Foucault's methodological pluralism as an excuse for poor scholarship, a 'vague epistemological position', or a 'non-specific mode of analysis'.[12]

Foucauldian approaches to discourse are now well established in a wide variety of fields and a number of texts have explored ways in which researchers might utilise Foucault's 'toolbox' of tactics, strategies and approaches.[6-8,13-16] Many of these texts offer their own interpretations of Foucault's methodological deliberations and serve a vital function in attempting to clarify a Foucauldian approach for students, supervisors, examiners, readers and writers alike. However, as Derek Hook observed above, some secondary texts tend to treat Foucault as a 'diagnostician' of culture and society, rather than as someone offering 'a powerful means of enabling forms of critique and resistance'.[6] Distinguishing between those sources that offer a more didactic reading of Foucault's methodological principles and those that emphasise the power inherent in Foucault's ability to initiate action and bring about real change, therefore, becomes an important task for the student of Foucault's ideas.

For my part, the methodological approach I sought needed to interrogate the disciplinary technologies and governmental strategies at play in the discursive construction of physiotherapy practice. My thesis examined the surface of emergence of three distinct historical moments in the development of physiotherapy practice in England and New Zealand. The first concentrated on the emergence of the Society of Trained Masseuses (STM) in England at the end of the nineteenth century and the Society's pursuit of legitimacy a more detailed account of this can be found at.[17] The second concerned the migration of the technologies of discipline deployed by the STM to New Zealand, and the emergence of an orthodox

physiotherapy profession within the welfare reforms of the mid-twentieth century. A third focused on new 'bleeding edge' practices in New Zealand that appeared to be resisting the discourses of legitimacy and orthodoxy that had guided physiotherapy practice for more than a century.

In my thesis, I was drawn to the period of Foucault's writing that spanned his move from the archaeological interest in the formation, correlation and transformation of discourses and statements (most notably, Foucault[18,19,20]), to his genealogical interest in the matrices of power that made discursive formations possible.[21-23] My focus was upon the range of disciplinary technologies deployed by physiotherapists and the governmental context in which physiotherapy practices came to operate. I was drawn to the critical histories of authors such as David Armstrong, Sarah Nettleton and Nikolas Rose,[24-33] and leant heavily on the methodological approaches deployed by these authors, supported by the writings of Derek Hook, John Ransom and Maria Tamboukou.[6,8,13,34,35] My allegiance with particular interpretations of Foucault's postmodern principles and methodological propositions lay in my desire to explore 'what counts as reasonable and qualified knowledge within a circumscribed socio-historical milieu...by detail[ing] the underlying forms/conditions/criteria of reasonable knowledge on the basis of which truthful statements can be made'.[13]

Taking my own doctoral thesis as a point of departure, this paper attempts to address some of the methodological issues that were raised by my thesis; not didactically, or through a prescription for how Foucauldian discourse analysis ought to be done, but by presenting the approach that served to address the theoretical questions I was posing of my data. My hope is that this offers some meaningful insights for others engaged in a similar endeavour without being overly prescriptive.

## The role of objects, subjects, concepts and strategies in the construction of discourses

Although it is in some ways a false distinction, Foucault's writings prior to *Discipline and Punish*,[34] are often referred to as 'archaeological' texts. In these texts – notably *Madness and Civilisation, The Archaeology of Knowledge*, and *The Birth of the Clinic*,[18-20] Foucault mapped out a methodological framework that focused heavily on the historical conditions that had made it possible to think and act in particular ways. Foucault attempted to liberate the notion of discourse from the linguistic constraints of semiotics. He explored how it might be possible to escape the progressivism of historiography whilst, at the same time freeing the author
from the weight of responsibility s/he carried in hermeneu-
tics. Foucault's bold re-reading of the role of statements and
discourses in the construction of knowledge was achieved
through a number of methodological imperatives, principles
and rules that Foucault indicated only sporadically through
his later writings.[9,35] Before setting out these injunctions
in more detail, however, we need to consider how Foucaul-
dian scholars have developed the notion of 'text'.

Studies that utilise Foucault’s archaeological principles fre-
quently take as their starting point a diverse array of texts.
These texts are not confined only to physical documents that
bear what Derek Hook called the ‘markings of textuality’,[13]
but include any utterance or form of expression that plays a
role in forming or moderating what can be thought, said or
done at any one time.[19] Texts are composed of statements,
or ‘those utterances…which make some form of truth-claim…
and which are ratified by knowledge’.[36] The particular
knowledge that passes as truth at any particular moment is
the product of a discursive formation, which describes a va-
riety of statements, subjects, objects, concepts and thematic
choices.[19] Discursive formations define a discursive field,
or the ‘totality of all effective statements (whether spoken
or written)’, and a discursive field encompasses every form
of practice that systematically forms the objects of which it
speaks adapted from Foucault’s definition of discourse, cited
in *The Archaeology of Knowledge* (p. 7).[19]

Statements form the basic unit of analysis in archaeological
enquiry because they make objects, subject positions, con-
cepts and strategies visible, and consequently they become
amenable to analysis. At the same time, in exploring these
statements, we learn something about the ways in which they
are made visible in the first place: the matrices of power rela-
tions that make certain forms of knowledge authoritative (and
thereby acceptably expressed as statements), and others un-
acceptable. The rules that govern the visibility of statements
and their subsequent effect on the formation, correlation and
transformation of discourses, were set down by Foucault as
'rules' for understanding the interplay between statements
and discourses and they, therefore, provided a useful vehicle
through which I was able to approach the analysis of my
particular texts.

The archaeological possibilities of objects, sub-
jects, strategies and concepts

The first archaeological rule pertains to the ‘Rule of Discursive
Formation’, and concerns the way in which some discourses
are formed by particular statements and not others. Foucault
encouraged scholars to explore the ways that certain objects,

subjects, concepts and strategies make particular thoughts,
actions and behaviours possible, and the way these relate to
the construction of knowledge and the formation of texts. Tak-
ing each of these in order, Foucault explored the formation of
discursive objects that embodied statements that legitimately
bore the markings of particular discursive constructions.
Foucault explored the surface of emergence of these objects,
the authorities that gave weight to these discursive construc-
tions (what Foucault called the ‘authorities of delimitation’),
and the ways in which the objects are classified, organised,
divided and regrouped (or ‘grids of specification’).[19] One
object that features prominently in my own analysis of the
discursive construction of physiotherapy practice was the
treatment bed. Throughout physiotherapy’s history, treatment
beds have been the site of tension for those who wished to
legitimise touch. For physiotherapists, the treatment bed (or
couch/plinth/table) bears certain ‘statements’ about its pur-
pose as a way of expressing particular discourses of legiti-
macy and orthodoxy. These tensions are played out, know-
ingly or unknowingly, whenever physiotherapists interact
with clients, and by exposing the role of the object of which
the discourse speaks to critical scrutiny, one may make more
visible the ensembles of knowledge that frame our thinking
in particular ways.

Foucault also spoke of the formation of subject positions.
Here, again, his concern was to explore the ways in which
discourses privilege certain subject positions whilst marginal-
ising others. In the study of physiotherapy practice, for exam-
ple, one of the major analytic focal points was the formation
of particular physiotherapy subjectivities: who is speaking;
whose authority carries legitimacy; who is allowed to pro-
vide commentary on particular objects? Physiotherapists may
occupy different subject positions that place them in differ-
ing relations to particular objects. For example, they may be
orthodox health workers, conducting established biomedical
assessment and treatment practices; or they may adopt new
subject positions at the margins of orthodox practice. These
positions enable objects like the clinic environment, the tools
of measurement and assessment, or even patients/clients, to
be approached differently.

Foucault also considered the formation of concepts and
strategies. Concepts and strategies group statements around
particular notions of practice which, in turn, situate people
in relation to the objects that these statements construct.
Legitimate practice is one such concept that demands that
the early practice of masseuses complied with a set of social
norms. These social norms largely defined the subject posi-
tions and objects that could be deployed by the masseuses if
they were to align themselves successfully with the discourse of legitimacy. To govern the conduct of a diverse set of registered practitioners required a range of disciplinary strategies (examination and registration, rules of professional conduct, etc.). Taken together subjects, objects, concepts and strategies form a set of guiding principles that focus on what can be said, or thought, and what cannot. They provide the student with a brief guide to the functionaries of knowledge; the places where knowledge can be seen to be operating and the ways in which, at a rudimentary level at least, ensembles of knowledge can be apprehended.

## The relational qualities of discursive formations

Foucault's second archaeological rule, or the 'Rule of Discursive Correlation', focuses upon the fluid inter-relationship between discursive formations. This rule concerns the way discourses intersect, abut, compete, overlap, dominate, marginalise or negate one another.[13] Foucault argued that these interactions between discourses needed to be explored at a microscopic level (between subjects, objects, strategies and concepts), and at a macroscopic level (between discursive formations, competing knowledges and power effects), and so this rule encourages us to focus on the relational qualities of discursive formations.[15]

In studying physiotherapy practice the correlations between discursive formations played an important role because they provided a means for interpreting the changing context in which physiotherapists operate without recourse to historical progressivism. In other words, by exploring the correlations between discourses of legitimacy and orthodoxy across two distinct historical moments (the emergence of legitimate massage practice in England in the late nineteenth century, and the creation of an orthodox physiotherapy profession in New Zealand 50 years later), it was possible to analyse the changing context in which physiotherapists' actions operated.

## The transformation of discourses

The 'Rule of Discursive Transformation' encourages us to explore how discourses shift and change over time. Where are shifts occurring? What changes are happening 'internal' to the discourse? What effect are these changes having on the relationships with other discursive formations? Importantly, our task becomes one of mapping the transformations in these discourses over time and exploring the changing contexts in which they operate. Physiotherapist's relationship with a discourse of orthodoxy appears to have mutated considerably since the middle of the twentieth century. At the height of the welfarist reforms taking place in New Zealand between

1938 and 1950 it was vital that physiotherapists were seen as an orthodox provider of physical rehabilitation services. As neo-liberal economic imperatives have gradually swept away welfarism, so physiotherapy's relationship with orthodoxy has shifted and we are now seeing the emergence of practices that openly resist the self-same discourses that were once considered vital.

Foucault did not consider that discourses could be 'defined' – since this might reinforce the view that they were monolithic entities warranting description – instead, he argued that their relationships, tactics, operations, oppositions, etc. should be 'mapped' across a broad terrain of events.[37] It becomes necessary, then, in my own study, to map an array of discursive formations, rules, knowledges, structures and systems, some of which were immensely stable over time and others that were entirely transitory. Importantly, Foucault argued that our task was to disturb that which was previously considered immobile; fragment what was thought unified; and show the heterogeneity of what had been considered consistent adapted from.[38] Keeping faith with Foucault's methodological intentions, I attempted to make visible the various statements that cohere around the discourses of critical importance to my particular focus, and in so doing, explore the relations of power that made these statements visible in the first place.

## The archive

Foucault called the rules that govern the formation, correlation and transformation of discourses an 'archive'. This is a very different interpretation of the term to that found in historiographic research, since Foucault utilised his understanding of the term as the basis for genealogical inquiry by exploring systems of 'domination, subjugation, the relationships of force'.[39] Thus, an exploration of the archive focuses on the relations of power that provide the conditions of possibility for thought. Foucault's shift from concentrating on the conditions that make thought historically possible, to a concern for the ways in which such notions as (bio)power, discipline, knowledge and governmentality define particular subjectivities exemplifies, for many, the shift from Foucault's archaeological approach to a more genealogical interest that can be found in his later writings; particularly the three volumes of *The History of Sexuality* and the lectures that he gave at the Collège de France until his untimely death.[21,22,40-45] The distinction between these two approaches is, however, somewhat artificial, as Maria Tamboukou argues:

> Genealogy was often promoted by Foucault as a kind of successor to archaeology. Despite this, genealogy maintains many of the essential ingredients of archae-
ontology, including, paradoxically, the examination of
bodies of statements in the archive. However, Fou-
cault added to it a new concern with the analysis of
power, a concern which manifests itself in the 'history
of the present'.[8]

Drawing on Foucault's own writings, archaeological approaches may be seen as a 'methodology [for the] analysis of local discursivities',[40] whereas genealogy refers to 'the tactics whereby, on the basis of the descriptions of these local discursivities, the subjected knowledges which were thus released would be brought into play'.[40]

According to Tamboukou, genealogical analysis reflects upon ‘the nature and development of modern power’, and works on the assumption that ‘truth cannot be separated from the procedures of its production’.[8] Genealogical analyses, therefore, target three specific foci;

First, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to truth through which we constitute ourselves as subjects of knowledge; second, a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to a field of power through which we constitute ourselves as subjects acting on others; third, a historical ontology in relation to ethics through which we constitute ourselves as moral agents.[41]

Thus, it is possible, in undertaking a discourse analysis informed by Foucault's thinking, to blend, for instance, a concern for the role of knowledge in the construction of particular subjectivities, with an analysis of the ways in which our conduct is governed, and an exploration of the ethical conduct that allows us to govern ourselves. To blend archaeological and genealogical inquiry this way demands that we understand more of Foucault's approach to genealogy.

Defining Foucault's genealogical injunctions

In *The Order of Discourse*, Foucault[35] articulated four methodological 'injunctions' that my help us to address the nature of genealogical inquiry. These injunctions were concerned with regulating one's analysis so that one is placed in the best position to view the conditions that delimit discourses and bring about their circulation.[42] First, genealogical inquiry encourages us to attend to the historical context in which one's study is situated.[6] Here the researcher takes on the role of 'cartographer',[43] mapping the study across a broad socio-political terrain – in my case across three critical moments in the history of physiotherapy practice. Secondly, the researcher is encouraged to explore the social, historical and political conditions under which statements come to count as true or false.[6] How, for instance, do discourses of legitimacy, orthodoxy and resistance come to be valued? Consequently discourses need to be explored not only as the effect

of particular forms of knowledge, but also in their own right
as the things that knowledge contests. Thirdly, the researcher
should consider the materiality and conditions of possibil-
ity inherent within discursive formations.[6] This is a critical
point because this focuses the researcher's attention on the
critical role played by actions and practices in defining the
various subjectivities under scrutiny. Finally, one must move
in and out of the text using the extra-discursive to 'drive the
analysis of the discursive'.[13] By 'extra-discursive' I believe
Hook is referring to the material practices and actions that
result from the formation, correlation and transformation of
discourses, rather than suggesting that there is anything nec-
essarily 'beyond' discourse. Foucault himself, used the no-
tion of a dispositif to express this point; a dispositif is a system
of relations that can be established between heterogeneous
elements, discursive and non-discursive practices; 'the said
as well as the unsaid'.[39]

These methodological injunctions are sufficient as a first step
in guiding the development of genealogical analysis, but
they are only preliminary injunctions to delineate genea-
logical inquiry from archaeological. Foucault's approach to
genealogical inquiry gains critical weight, however, when
questions of power, knowledge, discourse and subjectivity
are approached through a set of 'systems' that Foucault iden-
tified as mediating the role of power in the construction of
knowledge and truth.[29] The first systems Foucault identi-
fied he called the 'systems of exclusion', which explore those
approaches that seek to constrain what can be thought or
practiced through relations of power.[6]

Foucault's internal, external and philosophical
systems of exclusion

Systems of exclusion function to define what can be thought,
known or said at a particular time.[19] Foucault identified
three main forms of exclusion; internal, external and philo-
sophical. Internal systems of exclusion concern our belief
that we are the instigators of new knowledge, rather than the
effect of the recirculation of older, primary discursive con-
structions (particularly those pertaining to religious, scientific
or juridical matrices of power). This belief in our originality
has led to us overstating the importance of the author of this
newfound knowledge.[19] (By author, Foucault is referring to
the author of a particular statement, discourse or text rather
than the author of this research document, *per se*). Foucault
actively pursued an alternative view of the author function by
reversing the nature of the question: rather than asking what
discursive formations the author imbues, he asked how is the
author formed and transformed as a consequence of the ac-
tions of the discourse?[19] Exploring these systems of exclu-
sion allowed me to focus on the recirculation of approaches
towards massage that were colonised by the early founders
of the 'legitimate' massage profession. In essence, it became
clear that the early founders of the profession had not 'in-
vented' new approaches or benefitted from new ideas, only
that they had been able to corral a set of suitable techniques
and operations that had been circulating, in some cases, for
more than a century. Through their tactical operations, they
were able to utilise these forms of knowledge to define them-
selves as a legitimate solution to the 'massage scandals' that
had initially prompted their actions.

By contrast, external systems of exclusion include all overt
attempts to prohibit certain ways of thinking, through the
suppression of ideas and ways of speaking. These include the
binary differentiations between what is considered reasoned
and what is unreasoned or madness; and the differentiation
between what might be considered truthful and what is seen
as false.[19] These systems function as effective mechanisms
of differentiation that enable us to normalise certain ways
of thinking, speaking and being, whilst marginalising oth-
ers. What comes to count as practically truthful, just as what
comes to count as practically reasonable within a political
or social system, is less about pure knowledge or truth and
more about the function of truth as a constantly mutating,
fluid expression of an array of power effects.[19] Often, this
leads the researcher to explore the places where acts of re-
sistance appear as ruptures or eruptions. In my own study,
the emergence of a new private clinic in Auckland, New
Zealand, heralded an attempt to break free from the con-
straints of conventional physiotherapy practice. It was the
emergence of this clinic that prompted me to ask 'what is the
clinic resisting?'

From here, I began to realise that there were established
forms of practice that had been so quotidian that I had never
before considered investigating them. Ruptures of this sort
can, therefore, lead to the unpacking of a great deal of estab-
lished thinking and reasoning around practices that we had
previously taken for granted.

Foucault emphasised that the analysis of these systems
represents an unrelenting scepticism towards the 'material
conditions of possibility...the multiple institutional supports
and various social structures and practices underlying the
production of truth'.[44] Jessop's own methodological in-
junction argued that;

The study of power should begin from below, in the
heterogeneous and dispersed micro-physics of power,
explore specific forms of its exercise in different insti-
tutional sites, and consider how, if at all, these were

linked to produce broader and more persistent soci-
etal configurations. One should study power where
it is exercised over individuals rather than legitimated
at the centre; explore the actual practices of subju-
gation rather than the intentions that guide attempts
at domination; and recognize that power circulates
through networks rather than being applied at par-
ticular points.[44]

The third system Foucault called the philosophical systems
of exclusion.[19] These concern the ways in which power
effects are effectively concealed behind idealised notions of
truth or universal logos. Foucault was concerned with how
these various forms of exclusion collude to create an idea-
lised notion of truth within Western society. In doing so these
systems effectively conceal the power effects of discourse
which comes to 'occupy only the smallest possible space be-
tween thought and speech'.[8] Power effects become invis-
ible behind an array of rules, rituals, systems and procedures
that then project truth as taken-for-granted or commonplace,
implying that truth is stable and immutable.[6] The effect is
to obscure from view the operations of power. In my case, I
came to realise that physiotherapists were strongly positioned
by biomechanical discourses that constrained their ability to
critically evaluate cultural, economic, political, psychologi-
cal, social and spiritual dimensions of health and illness. Bio-
mechanics acted as a natural lens through which physiother-
apists learnt to view their patients, concealing the matrices
of power that were necessary to maintain the abstract purity
of this approach. Foucault's interest was therefore directed
towards destabilising the taken-for-grantedness of such truth
claims; exposing the matrices of power effects at the material
level where discursive and extra-discursive practices appear
to present a uniform, uncontested face.[19]

These systems of exclusion have important implications be-
cause they focus on the conditions that constrain how state-
ments construct particular subjectivities. By exposing these
systems to scrutiny they are problematised, and it becomes
easier to see how they make legitimated thought and action
possible. They also allow us to explore the kinds of knowl-
edge that are valorised and those that are marginalised, as
well as scrutinising the ways in which people have sought to
colonise particular modes of speaking about their thoughts
and actions in order to adopt or privilege certain subject po-
sitions. They also allow us to expose the power effects that
were previously concealed beneath the mass of technical
operations, disciplinary technologies and material practices.

Foucault's methodological 'principles' and ge-
nealogical inquiry

The second set of principles designed by Foucault to ensure
that relations of power, knowledge, discourse and subjectivity could be approached genealogically, were called ‘rules’ by Foucault, but rather than think of these in the normative sense, I applied these more as a set of guiding principles. They particularly concern the relationship between discourse and power and guide the researcher to analyse the material conditions of possibility, and the power effects that govern the operation of discourses in the construction of particular subjectivities. Each of these ‘cautionary prescriptions’ will be considered separately, beginning with the ‘Rule of Immanence’.

The Rule of Immanence reminds us that power operates as a microscopic/local network that enmeshes people rather than being exercised over them.[13] The focus for analytic enquiry should, therefore, be the local centres of operation of power; the places where objects are defined, subject positions negotiated and concepts and strategies are exercised.[22] The focus falls on local texts, local statements and local practices; the examination papers handed out to students; the photograph that shows how massage ought to be practiced; the promotional pamphlet; or today's patient assessment.

The second methodological principal Foucault called the Rule of Continual Variation. This rule emphasises the importance of resisting the tendency to analyse power and knowledge as static entities.[13] Foucault's assertion was that power/knowledge and the subjectivities that ensued can never be seen as static.[22] This suggestion plays a vital role in shifting our thinking away from power and knowledge as something people have or don't have, to a consideration for the matrices of knowledge/power that define certain subjectivities. In my own work I explored the matrices of power effects governing physiotherapy conduct not as a monolith but as a practice, or more accurately, as an 'event'.

The focus for the third rule – the Rule of Double Conditioning, is upon the relationship between local material practices and the more ‘global’ questions to which they connect. Foucauldian approaches commonly emphasise ‘ascending’ analyses of power rather than the downward flow of power from above.[13] Thus, analyses often begin with local material practices, but seek to connect these practices with broader governmental concerns. In my case, the focus has been upon three historical moments wherein the local practices of the clinician were seen in the context of three political rationales: the birth of physiotherapy at the height of classical liberalism; the pursuit of orthodoxy during periods of welfare reform; and the emergence of new practices as a response to neo-liberalism.

Finally, the Rule of Tactical Polyvalence of discourse encourages the researcher to consider the possibility that discourses may occupy a number of different positions for practitioners that extend beyond the simple binaries of enabling and constraining, dominating and dominated.[19,34] Instead, Foucault argues that ‘a multiplicity of discursive elements [can] come into play in various strategies’.[22] Here, I explored how certain discourses were in a competing or contradictory relationship with other discourses, resulting in a range of subjectivities being made available to physiotherapy practitioners. The range of subjectivities made available then becomes the focus for further analytic inquiry as it reveals something of the matrix of power effects operating to govern the emergent discourses (returning us again to the archive).

## Principles of reversibility, discontinuity and specificity

Having offered an overview of some of the genealogical rules that Foucault articulated as part of his methodological priorities, I now turn to three important methodological principals for analysing the relationship between matrices of power, ensembles of knowledge, and the creation of discursive formations. These are the principals of reversibility, discontinuity and specificity.

Foucault's principal of reversibility encourages us to change the way we view the relationship between discourses and power. Foucault argued that we should look for the 'numberless beginnings' of a particular event,[8] rather than consider that our present originated from one primary source. Here, power is not the result of this process, but rather the force that defines how discourses operate; 'our present is not theorised as the result of a meaningful development, but rather as an episode, a result of struggle and relations of force and domination' Foucault in *The Foucault Effect*.[45] In this way, 'physiotherapy' discourses may be seen as 'events' rather than a creative force from which we derive meaning. Critical histories of this sort, therefore, reverse the relationship between power and discourse seen in other theoretical approaches. In my own work, for example, I explored the material conditions of power associated with physiotherapists' pursuit of orthodox status. Orthodoxy becomes the goal, and I have attempted to expose the political conditions of possibility that give orthodoxy meaning for physiotherapists. This act of reversal exposes the machinery of power to scrutiny, and reveals, for example, what is concealed in historical accounts of physiotherapy practice.

Foucault's principal of discontinuity asserts that discourses should not be seen as trans-historical, unified or
homogeneous.[13] Instead the work of the discourse analyst should be directed towards an awareness of the mobile, fragmentary and historically contingent nature of discourse. This approach troubles the idea that discourses possess any particular linearity or causality. It also encourages us to focus on discourses in series rather than in a linear, progressive form. The principal of discontinuity encourages us to take a broad, 'horizontal' view of text generation and analysis, rather than applying a more hermeneutic approach to the excavation of a deep, but relatively narrow field of enquiry. Hook argues that these hermeneutic forms of analysis risk reinforcing 'exactly those forms of power that were initially being critiqued in the first place'.[13] Foucauldian discourse analysts seek to 'map discourse, to trace its outline and its relations of force across a variety of discursive forms and objects'.[13] Or as Tamboukou describes it;

> Instead of going deep, looking for origins and hidden meanings, the analyst is working on the surface, constructing 'a polygon or rather a polyhedron'[45] of various minor processes that surround the emergence of the event'.[8]

For me, this principal features in the breadth of data sampled to obtain a broad appreciation for the actions taken by masseuses and physiotherapists in establishing their subjectivities. The emphasis was upon mapping power effects and discursive constructions rather than upon physiotherapists as the author or sole arbiters of truth.

The third principal is the principal of specificity, which reinforces the importance of not placing too much emphasis upon the linguistic and representational power of language when conducting discourse analysis.[19] Derek Hook argues that Foucault's work gains a 'unique epistemological strength'[6] when one considers the importance placed upon *the discursive effects* of the material, and *the material effects* of the discursive.[46] In undertaking a Foucauldian discourse analysis, we should place a great deal more emphasis upon the physical and material circumstances of discourse rather than a purely linguistic interpretation. Hook goes as far as to say here that these *extra-discursive* elements should be the main driving force for our discourse analysis, and in this way, we are less likely to slip into a narrow, linguistic analysis of our subject.[13]

Collectively, these methodological imperatives, principles and rules represent some of the key injunctions governing Foucauldian approaches towards archaeological and genealogical analysis. I will now bring these together to review four principles that heavily influenced my own approach to Foucauldian discourse analysis.

## Four methodological propositions

Foucault's methodological intentions are contained within a wide variety of texts, and are interwoven with the particular theoretical questions he was addressing at the time. Isolating these so that they may be drawn out and applied to other contexts can be a challenging enterprise. That being said, there has been a large body of work conducted in recent years to supplement Foucault's original intentions, some of which has shed useful light on to the ways other researchers have used Foucault's ideas in their own work. I close this paper now by offering a succinct summary of the principles that I have found to be instructive in conducting my own approaches to text generation and analysis.

### First proposition: utilise a plurality of texts

> 'Genealogy...requires patience and a knowledge of detail, and it depends on a vast accumulation of source material.'[47]

In undertaking historical enquiry, Foucault argued that one should look to 'map' the terrain upon which knowledge was formulated; explore its contours, and locate its many ruptures, fissures, formations and transformations.[44] Foucault used geological metaphors to emphasise the importance of focusing, in the first instance, upon the 'surface effects' that brought about new knowledge.[19] Extending this metaphor, Foucault spoke of archaeological inquiry as a way of excavating beneath the surface of these emergent discourses.[19] In practical terms, this means using of a wide range of texts, spread over a broad horizon, made up of different textual materials, from a diversity of sources. It may be necessary, for instance, to draw on texts from different countries, ranging over many events, epistemes or historical moments, whilst including a wide range of texts (documents, interviews, observations and reflections, for example) to expose discourses to sufficient scrutiny.

### Second proposition: focus upon local, material practices

Rather than seeking the effects of discourses, knowledge and power in grand theories or ideologies, Foucault argued that one should locate and explore texts in the locations where oppression, forms of discipline, regulations and constraints, binaries of separation, claims of originality, and self-evident truths were present.[9] As well as employing a plurality of texts, therefore, it may be necessary to focus on the immanence and immediacy of events in the conduct of the practices one is scrutinising. The locations where particular knowledges are produced and the locations where power relations are enacted should also be a primary concern. The
researcher should seek out places where material practices
are inscribed, documented or stated, and focus on practices
that seem obvious, or taken-for-granted, as much as those
that loudly proclaim their presence.

*Third proposition: attend to the ruptures, fissures and tensions on the surface of discourses*

Foucault argued that rather than looking for continuities,
which only reinforce our progressive image of history, we
should explore the surface of emergence of new discursive
forms by problematising tensions, emersions, fissures and
ruptures in what might otherwise appear to be continuous
discourses. Thus we should not look for a smooth, unruffled
surface in excavating ensembles of knowledge and matrices
of power, but rather we should look to explore how the
practices we are interrogating reveal the contingency of local
discursivities.

*Fourth proposition: drive the discourse analysis with extra-discursive elements*

Foucault's objections to linguistic, interpretative and histori-
graphic analyses have been articulated repeatedly in recent
years.[6,13,48,49] Derek Hook, in his analysis of Foucault's
methodological approach, reinforced the importance of driv-
ing the generation and analysis of texts through their extra-
discursive elements to avoid the mistake of placing too much
emphasis upon textual relativism.[6] According to Hook,
Foucault is partly to blame for this tendency to misinter-
pret his own methodological intentions,[50] since Foucault
sought to collapse the boundaries between textual/material
divisions, and between the discursive and extra-discursive; to
complicate and problematise this artificial separation.[6] This
has, however, led to some authors seeing every action, op-
eration, technique or strategy only in linguistic terms. Hook
re-draws this distinction and encourages us to 'substantiate
critical textual assertions on the basis of materially-focused
analyses, and vice versa'.[6]

Closing remarks

My intention in setting out to write this paper was to represent
a process that was developed during the course of a doctoral
thesis. I am acutely aware that, in defining some of these
injunctions, I risk of being overly deterministic or oversim-
plifying the subtle nuances inherent in Foucault's approach
to scholarship and critical inquiry. However, if a balance can
be struck between the methodological pluralism that Fou-
cault's philosophical frameworks demand, and the needs of
researchers to be able to determine when they, and others,
have been true to Foucault's methodological and theoretical

intentions, then I would argue that there is something to be
gained in being clearer about the way in which one might ‘do’
Foucauldian discourse analysis. I have attempted to do this
in this essay by setting out the approach I took to my analysis
of the discursive construction of physiotherapy practice. It
represents only one of very many possible approaches that
might be taken to Foucauldian discourse analysis.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the reviewers who gave thoughtful comments on the first draft of this paper

Contact Information for Author:

David A. Nicholls, PhD, MA, GradDipPhys, NZSP

Senior Lecturer

Auckland University of Technology

School of Physiotherapy

Akoranga Campus, A-11

90 Akoranga Drive, Northcote

Private Bag 92006, Auckland 1020

New Zealand

Email: david.nicholls@aut.ac.nz