LGBTIQ
Reshaping Discourse by Creating the Language of Discursive Formation: Mahasweta Devi and Gloria Anzaldua By Kristen Black
French philosopher Michel Foucault approached the term ‘discourse’ from a social constructionist perspective where he emphasized examining language texts not simply as descriptions of the way things are, but in how the texts themselves are productive of the very phenomena they are seeking to describe. The importance lies not just in asking what a concept means, but “how and to
what effect is this concept deployed; what does it do?” (Valentine 30). In order to be analytical of language in this way one must seek the situated histories, politics, and social practices that have enabled the meaning of such concepts. In this vein, discourse is implicitly constructed and enacted by a people affected by and productive of its meaning. Discourse is as much an action as