Esta dissertação problematiza o discurso da expertise neurocientífica no que se refere à produção de verdade acerca da caracterização de uma ética, uma moral e uma ontologia humana a partir da concepção das Neurociências. Inspirado no referencial teóricometodológico que Gilles Deleuze denominou de cartografia foucaultiana e na arqueologia de Foucault, o estudo tem como objetivo examinar e descrever o discurso midiatizado das Neurociências – designado como neurodiscurso –, no que tange ao objeto da pesquisa, e mapear diagramas de poder entre práticas discursivas e meios não discursivos relacionados com a dispersão do neurodiscurso nas práticas culturais e políticas da contemporaneidade. A problematização é derivada da trilogia foucaultiana saber-poder-si e das três esferas derivadas da concepção de biopoder contemporâneo, tal como apresentado por Paul Rabinow e Nikolas Rose: discursos experts verdadeiros; jogos de poder; modos de subjetivação. Os referenciais do campo da Saúde Mental Coletiva, a problematização acerca da moral realizada por Friedrich Nietzsche e a concepção de biopolítica proposta por Nikolas Rose também irão compor o solo epistemológico e dar subsídios às análises. Como corpus foram selecionadas para análise entrevistas de neurocientistas publicadas em páginas digitais de veículos de comunicação de ampla divulgação. Os enunciados selecionados foram reinterpretados a partir de determinadas formações discursivas. A designação humano demasiado orgânico, aqui, é tomada para dar visibilidade ao emergente modo de o ser humano pensar, interpretar, julgar e definir a si mesmo a partir de uma compreensão somática. Esse processo, no âmbito das Neurociências, tem sido identificado por diferentes autores como a aparição de uma nova figura antropológica, que busca redefinir filosoficamente a concepção de humanidade: o Sujeito Cerebral. O discurso das Neurociências tem constituído uma dada política de verdade acerca da ontologia humana por meio de fluxos de poder entre distintos domínios: um saber delimitado historicamente, o Cerebralismo; sua dispersão na cultura – as Neuroculturas; sua versão como estratégia biopolítica – as Neuropolíticas; a configuração de uma determinada figura de humanidade: o Homo neuronal; o surgimento de novos modos de subjetivação e de práticas sociais individuais e coletivas: o Sujeito Cerebral, as neuroasceses, e as neurossociabilidades – e um determinado projeto teleológico, denominado por Lucien Sfez como utopia da saúde perfeita. Como a caracterização desse discurso em larga medida tem sido atravessado pelo ideário biopolítico neoliberal, a problematização deste estudo evoca a recusa a formas de subjetividades coercitivas que correspondam a projetos reducionistas e totalitários de poder, e enseja a abertura a perspectivas ontológicas que criem novas possibilidades de compreensão de si e à invenção de formas de vida não fascistas. / This thesis discusses the discourse of neuroscience expertise with regard to the production of truth about the characterization of an ethics, a moral and a human ontology from the Neuroscience framework. Inspired by the theoretical framework that Gilles Deleuze called Foucauldian cartography and in Foucault's archeology, the study aims to examine and describe the mediatized discourse of Neuroscience – designated as neurodiscourse – with respect to the object of the research, and to map power diagrams between discursive practices and not discursive means related to the dispersion of the neurodiscourse in the cultural and political practices of contemporaneity. The questioning is derived from Foucault's trilogy knowledge-power-self and the three spheres derived from the notion of contemporary biopower as presented by Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose: true expert speeches; power games; modes of subjectivity. Works from the field of Public Mental Health, the questioning about the moral performed by Friedrich Nietzsche and the concept of biopolitics proposed by Nikolas Rose will also compose the epistemological ground and support analysis. As corpus were selected for analysis interviews with neuroscientists published in digital pages of full disclosure from media companies. The selected statements were reinterpreted from certain discursive formations. The designation human too organic, here, is taken to give visibility to the emerging ways humans think, interpret, judge and define itself from a somatic understanding. This process, in the context of Neuroscience, has been identified by different authors as the appearance of a new anthropological figure, which seeks to redefine the philosophical conception of humanity: the Cerebral Subject. The discourse of Neuroscience has given determined truth policy about human ontology through power flows between different areas: a knowledge delimited historically, cerebralism; its spread in the culture – the neurocultures; his version as biopolitics strategy – Neuropolitics; the settle of a determined figure of humanity: Homo neuronal; the emergence of new forms of subjectivity and individual and collective social practices: the Cerebral Subject, the neuroasceses, and neurosociabilities – and a certain teleological project, named by Lucien Sfez as utopia of perfect health. Since the characterization of this discourse to a large extent has been crossed by the ideology neoliberal biopolitics, the questioning of this study evokes the refusal to forms of coercive subjectivities that match reductionist and totalitarian projects of power, and entails the opening to ontological perspectives that create new possibilities for understanding of the self and the invention of non-fascist life forms.

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No. of bitstreams: 2 Tese - Wilton Divino da Silva Júnior - 2018.pdf: 1296245 bytes, checksum: 944958381b686446d6837a8294f8e2f7 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-08-31 / The general hypothesis of this research is centered on the reflections about the possibility of operationalizing the idea of transgression as a functional concept for the studies of discourse. This study is based on a Foucauldian approach to discourse, inscribing itself in a philosophical position, much more than in a theory or method. At first, we try to think of transgression within the Foucauldian approach, from the crossings that the notions of event, truth, power, apparatus (dispositif) and certain practice of analysis of statements promote within the limits of an academic practice based on positivist procedures which upholds the notions of tradition, progress, exclusion from the heterogeneous, the ultimate truth, and finally, the homogenization of knowledge and practices. Simultaneously, I tried to highlight the points in which the Foucauldian notions contribute to illuminate conceptual and operational formulations of the idea of transgression. This research assumes an epistemological posture, because it aims to think the construction of a system of conceptual formation, however, because it is inscribed in the field of discursive studies, it sought to illustrate this construction from specific analysis of dictionary entries, journalistic news, the practice of pixação and two literary works by the Portuguese author José Saramago: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ and Cain. The analysis of these works sought to mark the singularity of the operation of transgression in literary discourse, considering the procedure of literary re-reading of history as a mechanism of transgression. Therefore, starting with Foucault's point of view on transgression in a text of 1963, we identify, based on the discursive analysis carried out, seven conceptual points for the idea of transgression, namely: (1) "transgression is a gesture concerning the limit "(FOUCAULT, 2006a); (2) transgression is of the order of the event; (3) transgression is a discussion about truth; (4) transgression is a discursive investment; (5) transgression is a discursive machine that moves the relevance of tradition; (6) transgression is a strategy of resistance; (7) transgression is one of constituents of an apparatus (dispositif). Finally, this research sought to cover some different fields of knowledge, discourse, and practices to reflect on transgression and viability, even the need for its operationalization to analyze discourses. / A hipótese geral desta pesquisa centra-se nas reflexões em torno da possibilidade de operacionalizar a ideia de transgressão como um conceito funcional para os estudos do discurso. Este estudo fundamenta-se em uma abordagem foucaultiana dos discursos, inscrevendo-se em uma postura filosófica, muito mais do que em uma teoria ou método. Procura-se, inicialmente, pensar a transgressão atuante no interior da abordagem foucaultiana, a partir dos atravessamentos que as noções de acontecimento, verdade,poder, dispositivo e de determinada prática de análise de enunciados promovem nos limites de um fazer acadêmico pautado nos procedimentos positivistas que sustentam a tradição, o progresso, a exclusão do heterogêneo, a verdade definitiva, enfim, a homogeneização dos saberes e das práticas. Simultaneamente, buscou-se evidenciar os pontos em que as noções foucaultianas contribuem para iluminar formulações conceituais e operacionais da ideia de transgressão. Esta pesquisa assume um caráter epistemológico, pois objetiva pensar a construção de um sistema de formação conceitual, entretanto, porque inscrita no campo dos estudos discursivos, procurou ilustrar essa construção a partir de análises pontuais de verbetes dicionarizados, de notícias jornalísticas, da prática de pixação e de duas obras literárias do autor português José Saramago: O evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo e Caim. A análise dessas obras procurou marcar a singularidade do funcionamento da transgressão no discurso literário, considerando o procedimento de releitura literária da história como um mecanismo transgressor. Portanto, partindo do apontamento de Foucault sobre a transgressão em um texto de 1963, identificamos, neste estudo a partir das análises discursivas realizadas, sete apontamentos conceituais para a ideia de transgressão, quais sejam: (1) “a transgressão é um gesto relativo ao limite” (FOUCAULT, 2006a); (2) a transgressão é da ordem do acontecimento; (3) a transgressão é uma discussão em torno da verdade; (4) a transgressão é um investimento discursivo; (5) a transgressão é uma máquina discursiva que move a pertinência da tradição; (6) a transgressão é estratégia de resistência; (7) a transgressão é uma das linhas de força constitutivas de um dispositivo. Enfim, essa pesquisa buscou percorrer alguns diferentes campos de saber, de discurso, de práticas para refletir em torno da transgressão, a viabilidade, e mesmo a necessidade de sua operacionalização para analisar discursos.

Esta dissertação problematiza o discurso da expertise neurocientífica no que se refere à produção de verdade acerca da caracterização de uma ética, uma moral e uma ontologia humana a partir da concepção das Neurociências. Inspirado no referencial teóricometodológico que Gilles Deleuze denominou de cartografia foucaultiana e na arqueologia de Foucault, o estudo tem como objetivo examinar e descrever o discurso midiatizado das Neurociências – designado como neurodiscurso –, no que tange ao objeto da pesquisa, e mapear diagramas de poder entre práticas discursivas e meios não discursivos relacionados com a dispersão do neurodiscurso nas práticas culturais e políticas da contemporaneidade. A problematização é derivada da trilogia foucaultiana saber-poder-si e das três esferas derivadas da concepção de biopoder contemporâneo, tal como apresentado por Paul Rabinow e Nikolas Rose: discursos experts verdadeiros; jogos de poder; modos de subjetivação. Os referenciais do campo da Saúde Mental Coletiva, a problematização acerca da moral realizada por Friedrich Nietzsche e a concepção de biopolítica proposta por Nikolas Rose também irão compor o solo epistemológico e dar subsídios às análises. Como corpus foram selecionadas para análise entrevistas de neurocientistas publicadas em páginas digitais de veículos de comunicação de ampla divulgação. Os enunciados selecionados foram reinterpretados a partir de determinadas formações discursivas. A designação humano demasiado orgânico, aqui, é tomada para dar visibilidade ao emergente modo de o ser humano pensar, interpretar, julgar e definir a si mesmo a partir de uma compreensão somática. Esse processo, no âmbito das Neurociências, tem sido identificado por diferentes autores como a aparição de uma nova figura antropológica, que busca redefinir filosoficamente a concepção de humanidade: o Sujeito Cerebral. O discurso das Neurociências tem constituído uma dada política de verdade acerca da ontologia humana por meio de fluxos de poder entre distintos domínios: um saber delimitado historicamente, o Cerebralismo; sua dispersão na cultura – as Neuroculturas; sua versão como estratégia biopolítica – as Neuropolíticas; a configuração de uma determinada figura de humanidade: o Homo neuronal; o surgimento de novos modos de subjetivação e de práticas sociais individuais e coletivas: o Sujeito Cerebral, as neuroasceses, e as neurossociabilidades – e um determinado projeto teleológico, denominado por Lucien Sfez como utopia da saúde perfeita. Como a caracterização desse discurso em larga medida tem sido atravessado pelo ideário biopolítico neoliberal, a problematização deste estudo evoca a recusa a formas de subjetividades coercitivas que correspondam a projetos reducionistas e totalitários de poder, e enseja a abertura a perspectivas ontológicas que criem novas possibilidades de compreensão de si e à invenção de formas de vida não fascistas. / This thesis discusses the discourse of neuroscience expertise with regard to the production of truth about the characterization of an ethics, a moral and a human ontology from the Neuroscience framework. Inspired by the theoretical framework that Gilles Deleuze called Foucauldian cartography and in Foucault's archeology, the study aims to examine and describe the mediatized discourse of Neuroscience – designated as neurodiscourse – with respect to the object of the research, and to map power diagrams between discursive practices and not discursive means related to the dispersion of the neurodiscourse in the cultural and political practices of contemporaneity. The questioning is derived from Foucault's trilogy knowledge-power-self and the three spheres derived from the notion of contemporary biopower as presented by Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose: true expert speeches; power games; modes of subjectivity. Works from the field of Public Mental Health, the questioning about the moral performed by Friedrich Nietzsche and the concept of biopolitics proposed by Nikolas Rose will also compose the epistemological ground and support analysis. As corpus were selected for analysis interviews with neuroscientists published in digital pages of full disclosure from media companies. The selected statements were reinterpreted from certain discursive formations. The designation human too organic, here, is taken to give visibility to the emerging ways humans think, interpret, judge and define itself from a somatic understanding. This process, in the context of Neuroscience, has been identified by different authors as the appearance of a new anthropological figure, which seeks to redefine the philosophical conception of humanity: the Cerebral Subject. The discourse of Neuroscience has given determined truth policy about human ontology through power flows between different areas: a knowledge delimited historically, cerebralism; its spread in the culture – the neurocultures; his version as biopolitics strategy – Neuropolitics; the settle of a determined figure of humanity: Homo neuronal; the emergence of new forms of subjectivity and individual and collective social practices: the Cerebral Subject, the neuroasceses, and neurosociabilities – and a certain teleological project, named by Lucien Sfez as utopia of perfect health. Since the characterization of this discourse to a large extent has been crossed by the ideology neoliberal biopolitics, the questioning of this study evokes the refusal to forms of coercive subjectivities that match reductionist and totalitarian projects of power, and entails the opening to ontological perspectives that create new possibilities for understanding of the self and the invention of non-fascist life forms.

Although Sweden has a long tradition of compulsory school attendance, there are children that do not attend. Previous research confirms that there are many concepts used to describe school absenteeism. Considered that categorization involves an aspect of power that adds attributes to these children based on stereotypic conceptions of the category, this fact seems problematic. By analyzing field related articles, the aim of this study is to reveal linguistic constructions of school absenteeism by means of discourse analysis. Consequences of discourses will be analyzed through previous research about categorization and Foucault’s theory of power. The main results of the study display several approaches to describe school absenteeism, of which we compiled five different discourses. They are presented as the bureaucratic perspective, the disciplinary perspective, the adaptation perspective, the social environment perspective and the family perspective. Each discourse describes a comprehension of deviance and normality, which affects the opportunities of wellbeing amongst children and forms the prerequisite of professional interventions. Providing help to children defined as deviants due to school absenteeism implicates exposure of pastoral power. The study concludes the need for a sensitive language utilization amongst school welfare officers.

Uppsatsens undersökning är en foucauldiansk diskursanalys av hur gymnasieelever talar om praktiken litteraturläsning där datainsamlingsmetoden är fokusgruppsintervjuer. Syftet med uppsatsen är att bidra med kunskap om hur gymnasieelever talar om praktiken litteraturläsning genom att undersöka vilka mönster som framträder i intervjuerna och hur dessa kan förstås gentemot dominerande diskurser i samtiden. Motiven till undersökningen är bland annat att debatten om ungas läsande har aktualiserats det senaste decenniet, att det finns få granskningar av dominerande uppfattningar som omgärdar praktiken litteraturläsning och att perspektivet hur elevers uppfattningar är konstruerade saknas i forskningen. Två mönster går att urskilja i fokusgruppsintervjuerna. Det ena mönstret är att litteraturläsning som praktik anses ge flera goda effekter såsom större ordförråd och förmågan att se saker ur olika perspektiv. Att läsa anses nyttigt och boken som artefakt äger hög status. Detta mönster utgör en reproducering av den dominerande diskursen om praktiken litteraturläsning där läsning som fenomen och läsande som praktik ses som något oproblematiskt gott. Det andra mönstret som framträder under fokusgruppsintervjuerna är att en motdiskurs etableras. Motdiskursen grundar sig på upplevelsen att läsandet som praktik är kopplat till press, tvång och prestation, och därför något olustigt. Enligt eleverna bör läsandet dels utgå från frivillighet, dels utgå från andra former av läspraktiker, såsom att läsa från mobiltelefonen. Undersökningens didaktiska implikationer är att en inkluderande litteraturundervisning förutsätter ett perspektivtagande där det omkringliggande samhällets värderingar om litteraturläsande diskuteras. Om så görs, kan en fördjupad förståelse nås om hur eleverna ser på litteraturläsning och vad som formar deras uppfattningar. / This master essay is a Foucauldian discourse analysis of how students in the Swedish upper secondary school talk about the practice of reading literature where the data collection method is focus group interviews. The purpose of the essay is to contribute to how students talk about the practice of reading literature by examining what patterns emerge in the interviews and how these can be understood in relation to dominant discourses in the society. The motives for the study are, among other things, that the debate about young people's reading has become more intense in the last decade, that there are few reviews of dominant perceptions that surround the practice of reading literature and that the perspective on how students' perceptions are constructed is lacking in research. Two patterns can be distinguished in the focus group interviews. One pattern is that the practice of reading is considered to have several good effects such as greater vocabulary and the ability to see things from different perspectives. Reading is considered useful and the book as an artifact has a high status. This pattern can be understood as a reproduction of the dominant discourse about the practice of reading literature, where reading as a phenomenon and reading as practice are seen as something unproblematically good. The second pattern that emerges during the focus group interviews is that a counter-discourse is established. The counter-discourse is based on the experience that reading as a practice is linked to pressure and achievement, and therefore something unpleasant. According to these students, reading should instead be based on free will and om other forms of reading practice, such as reading from a mobile phone. The didactic implications of the study are that an inclusive literature teaching presupposes a perspective-taking where the surrounding society's values ​​of literature reading are discussed. If this is done, an in-depth understanding can be reached about how the students view reading literature and what shapes their ideas.

This study explores Iran’s political and cultural history in order to better understand the country’s current stance on international politics and peace. This study asks: what defines peace in Iranian discourse? To this end, this thesis employs a Foucauldian archaeological and genealogical methodology on historical research and contemporary primary sources. The historical data is mainly secondary sources, whilst primary sources are drawn from contemporary speeches, interviews and articles presenting Iranian foreign political thought. First of all, this study uncovers the major research gaps concerning Iran in peace research. This speaks to the general lack of diversity and inclusiveness in the subject of Peace and Conflict studies, which is contrary to its claim of being universally relevant. Relevance comes with knowledge of other traditions and conversations across divides, which is typically absent in a universalised provincialism. Secondly, contemporary Iranian political discourse represents a continuity from antiquity, incorporating deep-rooted practises of cosmopolitanism and structural peace, represented by 4000-years of experiences in state-building, conflict management, continuous movement of people and changing centres of political power. In short, Iran has a long experience of multi-polarity, multi-ethnicity and multi-religiosity across time and space.

This study investigates about the meaning of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the meaning of the USA PATRIOT Act from an archaeological perspective (in the Foucauldian sense). Rather than accepting the Act and its formulations this study excavates the discursive elements that give meaning to the Act within the current socio-political sphere. In this sense this is a Foucauldian archaeology of patriotism in the United States of America illustrated and explicated through the current discourse created by the USA PATRIOT Act. Moreover, this research intends to illustrate how the patriotic discourse affects our current spatial practices. By analyzing the contemporary patriotic discourse through the lens of spatial theory what is sought is to briefly sketch the conceptual landscapes that are created through this discourse. This study applies the concepts and theories of Michel Foucault, Edward Soja, and Homi Bhabha as well as other postcolonial theorists to analyze the USA PATRIOT Act as a discourse that is linked and shaped by history and a discourse that is active in the design and content of our spaces.

Notre recherche propose d’appréhender la « mise en dispositif », au sens de Foucault (1977), de projets de polarisation territoriale dans le champ de l’économie sociale et solidaire (ESS). Nous nous appuyons sur une analyse multi-niveaux qui se décline sous la forme d’une enquête qualitative nationale sur l’élaboration du dispositif Pôle Territorial de Coopération Economique (PTCE) et de deux études de cas. Nous mobilisons la grille d’analyse du travail institutionnel pour cerner les pratiques mises en œuvre par les pôles pour s’approprier le dispositif dans un contexte de pluralisme institutionnel. Deux niveaux de résultats sont proposés. Le premier revient à éclairer le phénomène de banalisation du dispositif PTCE, qui est d’abord caractérisé par une logique civique de développement territorial alternatif, qui se voit ensuite remplacée par une logique gestionnaire de normalisation de l’ESS. Le second consiste à caractériser les modalités d’appropriation de ce dispositif à l’échelle méso. Il en ressort que le PTCE qui parvient à survivre et à se développer est celui qui hybride les logiques civique et gestionnaire. Le second PTCE, très façonné par la logique civique, ne parvient pas à pérenniser son activité et suscite un rejet du dispositif, dont il ne partage aucunement l’intention stratégique. Conjuguer une posture critique à une analyse néo-institutionnaliste nous permet de dégager plusieurs apports théoriques. (1) La montée en généralité nous amène à dessiner les contours conceptuels d’un nouveau type de dispositif que nous qualifions de normalisateur. (2) Nous mettons en évidence un nouveau type de pratiques : celles qui ont trait à la résistance institutionnelle. / Our research focuses on the adoption of a dispositive (Foucault, 1977) destinated to territorial polarization projects in the field of social and solidarity economy. We build on a multi-scalar approach which consists in a qualitative national survey of the construction of the Territorial Cluster for Economic Cooperation policy and two case studies of two of these clusters. We build on the institutional work theory to characterize the practices deployed by the two TCECs in order to appropriate the dispositive in a context of institutional pluralism. Two levels of results are proposed. The first one sheds light on the banalisation process of the TCEC dispositive at the national level, which is first dominated by a civic logic of alternative territorial development that is then effaced by a a managerial logic of normalization of SSE. The second level of results consists in characterizing the modalities of appropriation of this dispositive at the meso scale of the two clusters analysed. It appears that the TCEC which manages to survive and develop is the one that hybridizes the civic and managerial logics. The other one, particularly shaped by the civic logic, doesn’t manage to perpetuate its activities and implies a reject of the dispositive, since it doesn’t share its strategic intention. Combining a critical approach and a neo-institutionalist analysis leads to several theoretical contributions. (1) We draw the outlines of a new type of dispositive that we conceptualize as a normalizing dispostive. (2) The analysis of institutional work in a context of institutional pluralism highlights a new type of practices : the ones which deal with institutional resistance.

This study explored how the discursive practices of government education systemic discipline policy shape the behaviour of Aboriginal primary school students in an urban education district in Western Australia. First, this study conducted a Foucauldian genealogical discourse analysis of the historical and contemporary discursive forces that shaped systemic discipline policy in Western Australian government schools between 1983 and 1998 to uncover changing discursive practices within the institution. This period represented a most turbulent era of systemic discipline policy development within the institution. The analysis of the historical and contemporary discursive forces that shaped policy during this period revealed nine major and consistent discursive practices. Secondly, the study conducted a Foucauldian genealogical discourse analysis into the perspectives of key interest groups of students, parents and Education Department employees in an urban Aboriginal community on discipline policy in Education Department primary schools during the period from 2000 to 2001; and the influence of these policies on the behaviour of Aboriginal students in primary schools. The analysis was accomplished using Foucault's method of genealogy through a tactical use of subjugated knowledges. A cross section of the Aboriginal community was interviewed to examine issues of consultation, suspension and exclusion, institutional organisation and discourse. The study revealed that there are minimal consistent conceptual underpinnings to the development of Education Department discipline policy between 1983 and 1998. What is clear through the nine discursive practices that emerged during the first part of the study is a strengthened recentralising pattern of regulation, in response to the influence of a neo-liberal doctrine that commodifies students in a network of accountability mechanisms driven by the market-state economy. Evidence from both genealogical analyses in this study confirms that the increasing psychologisation of the classroom is contributing towards the pathologisation of Aboriginal student behaviour. It is apparent from the findings in this study that Aboriginal students regularly display Aboriginality-as-resistance type behaviours in response to school discipline regimes. The daily tension for these students at school is the maintenance of their Aboriginality in the face of school policy that disregards many of their regular cultural and behavioural practices, or regimes of truth, that are socially acceptable at home and in their community but threaten the 'good order' of the institution when brought to school. This study found that teachers and principals are ensnared in a web of governmentality with their ability to manoeuvre within the constraints of systemic discipline policy extremely limited. The consequence of this web of governmentality is that those doing the governing in the school are simultaneously the prisoner and the gaoler, and in effect the principle of their own subjection. Also revealed were the obscure and dividing discursive practices of discipline regimes that contribute to the epistemic violence enacted upon Noongar students in primary schools through technologies of power.

This thesis examines an instance of the failure of a parent-led bid for a new local school in Queensland at the end of the last millennium. This parent-led and school-endorsed initiative failed despite a policy climate that appeared actively to encourage such initiatives from government funded school communities. The work shows that the parents of Sunnyvale College, (a pseudonym), were both encouraged by the policy environment and discouraged by the response given to their new schooling initiative, from being full educational partners in the process of the schooling of their children. The unanticipated failure is investigated as a case study of parent engagement set against a background of relationships between government and particular educational stakeholders in that time and place. It examines how these relationships are played out in this context and what the implications of this are for contemporary relationships of this type. Because the approach to the case study is not based on any assumption that the " failure" was the outcome of a pernicious state, the investigation acknowledges the discontinuous nature of such educational relationships and thus, refuses notions of linearity and continuity. The case study approach draws on poststructuralist scholarship, in particular the work of Michel Foucault (1979-84), who is the key theorist informing the investigation. Foucault's theories relating to truth, power and governmentality, are of particular interest and are used as a basis for argument and analysis. The case study is conducted in three key parts. First, the study brings together an overarching framework of interpretive and theoretical bricolage, which works to allow multiple theoretical perspectives and understandings to inform the process of investigation. Second, there is an acknowledgement of the importance of history and also, of historical contingency, in the production of events such as this failure. Thus, there is an historical account of the establishment of schools in Queensland, particularly in the 1990s, and an exploration of the differences in the establishment process across this decade. This exploration is undertaken by working backwards through relevant archival documents and other data in order to highlight the discontinuous nature of such processes. This means that parent/school relationships are historicised, using a macro and micro analysis to understand how such relationships have been produced over time. The case in question is situated within this historicising, allowing for an exploration of its nature and setting, its historical background, the roles of particular individuals, and the processes and procedures that were important in the development of the case. The third part of the study involves re-theorising parent/school relationships in contemporary contexts. The main argument of the case study is that there was a shift in the discursive constitution of schooling that was taking place at the very time that the initiative was undertaken in 1997. It is argued that the school community in question was working out of a set of assumptions about school partnerships, which had already been substantially reinscribed by a new discursive system. This new system reframed " choice" and " community" in terms of the " performative" rather than the " democratic" school. The main arguments and findings in the case study are then used to re-theorise parent/school relationships in post-millennial Queensland, particularly in relation to policy reform. This re-theorising is conducted in the form of a discourse analysis of current federal and state government policy and other types of data, which are relevant to schooling in contemporary contexts. Various interpretive and theoretical perspectives are used in this process of re-theorising, including notions of performativity (Ball, 2003a, 2003b, 2004), responsibilisation (Rose, 1990, 1999, 2000) and pedagogicalisation (Popkewitz, 2003). Such notions are employed to build on the lines of inquiry that develop as a consequence of the use of Foucauldian theory in the earlier part of the study. These concepts are also used to develop new epistemological understanding of parent/school relationships in contemporary contexts. The work of Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 2001) further assists in the conceptualisation of parent engagement in schooling as a game played on the field of schooling. As a consequence of this re-theorising, it is argued that parent engagement in schooling is a focus of increased attention on the part of educational stakeholders and is increasingly demanded by way of increased levels of responsibilised participation. This trend raises questions about the levels of fatigue and anxiety that could result for parents as a consequence of such demanding levels of performance. Additionally, an argument is presented that " performative" parenting is a prescribed set of activities, not an open invitation to leadership and high-level decision-making. Thus, as previously mentioned, choice is always already framed, as " proper" parents make " informed" choices with regard to their children's schooling. This thesis concludes that " performative" schools offer new and problematic subject positions for " performative" parents, which are inviting more engagement but constraining the type of partnership that is possible between parents and schools.