Entry #9

Now that the time allotted for my project is coming to a close, I decided it is necessary to start thinking in terms of not only my final product, but also my presentation. Working with Sarah for her upcoming PhD research, along with following her reading suggestions on political ecology and glaciology, attacking the Foucault, and then researching discourse analysis on my own time has made for a pretty scatter-brained project. I'll concede that with Sarah's resource suggestions I significantly deviated from my original reading list I produced for the project; however, I have most certainly read more than I expected to/set out to read initially. But, for thinking in terms of the presentation, I realized that all of my research needs to be presented in a way that is both vaguely chronological and coherent, one that clearly indicates how the different fields are connected. And not only that, but presented in transparent, grounded language. For the sake of clarity, this means examples. Thus, in the last week I have created for myself a sort of discourse/narrative analysis "rubric", methods/guidelines of which I plan on applying to glacier texts of all different discourses (media, scientific, conversational, etc.). I'm hoping that approaching the discursive content of these texts (most of which I can find online, or at the U of A library) in an empirical fashion, I will access an efficient means of gauging the politicization of the texts' language and hence their "construction" of socialized meanings and associations surrounding natural concepts. The slight irony is that one of the main ideas of the texts I've been working with these past two months is to be openly critical of empiricism, specifically scientific empirical "truth", so by approaching these texts empirically I am being (structurally) somewhat hypocritical. However, I feel this constitutes a necessary evil, with the tradeoff being a clear, understandable, and logically fluid presentation. Plus, it's good practice for application of CDA/NA methods. For all the texts I analyze I will produce a write-up and upload that to the Evernote database I maintain with my advisor Sarah, such that she can easily refer to them for her own research. Lastly, I am aware that not all of these methods/steps of the rubric will be applicable to each individual text. Part of discourse analysis is determining the limits of any particular method and its relevance to the text in question. But here's what I've got for my rubric:

1. Critical discourse analysis methods (Fairclough); asking the following questions:
   a. What "experiential" values does the text's language use/refer to? That is to say, are words being used that are in some way ideologically contested? Is an ideology explicitly made clear by the text?
   b. What "relational" values do the words have? Do the words being used point to a common ideological ground between speaker and reader? Is there an element of formality/are euphemisms used?
   c. What metaphors does the text use? Are processes being described in other terms? What ideological implications might that have? (For instance, if one characterizes a series of protests as a cancer or a sickness, it is a priori assumed that that person does not want to reason with the protestors, but instead wants to categorically remove them)
   d. What logical connectors does the text use? Do the relationships made between statements demonstrate a form of ideological common-sense? To whom might this type of logic be exclusionary?
   e. What larger-scale structures does the text have? That is, does the text conform to any socially expected structure (specific orderings of types of statements) in making its point? Why might that be so?
2. Narrative analysis methods (Lejano, Ingram & Ingram)
   a. Somewhat similar to last question: does the text fit into any larger narrative scheme or metanarrative? (ie man vs. nature, Odyssey homecoming narrative, etc)
   b. Does the text demonstrate emplotment---are isolated events made to appear causal or related (or "meaningful") via their placement next to each other and into a larger narrative structure?
   c. Does the text have clearly-defined characters, ie with different personalities? How does their characterization contribute to the larger point being made by the text?
   d. Does the text demonstrate plurivocity---does it intend to be able to be interpreted in a variety of ways? Are there nonetheless limitations of this plurality of interpretations? By what ideological rules might those interpretations be delimited?
3. Larger-scale questions regarding discourse types; specifically, the "rarefaction among speaking subjects" of a discourse (Foucault)
   a. Does the text point to the prevalence of a "fellowship of discourse"? Does the text function in some way to preserve a given discourse, but ensure that it stays within a closed community?
   b. Does the text point to the prevalence of "doctrine"? Does it function to disseminate a particular discourse, linking the reader to certain types while barring him or her from others?
   c. Does the text point to the prevalence of "social appropriation of discourse"? Does it function to align education of certain discourses with social/political agendas?
4. Overall purpose: taking from the above, are the ways natural facets are presented by the text, when looked at through the lens of discourse and narrative analysis, somehow indicative of a certain ideological or political epistemology? Is it a hegemonic knowledge source? Why this one instead of another? Under this epistemological regime, what other power-laden statements might be able to be made, and to whose benefit?

So that's that..also, a heads-up to any readers I may have amassed: I will be in NYC for a Columbia pre-orientation thing for part of next week, so I apologize in advance for what's probably going to be another late-ish blog update. I really hope to share with you some of these methods in action, as well as possibly what I have written of my rough draft of my final product by that point. Alright, hope you enjoyed this post and have a good rest of the week!