Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD)

  • Theoretical Paper
  • Published:
Human Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The article presents the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD). SKAD, which has been in the process of development since the middle of the 1990s, is now a widely used framework among social scientists in discourse research in the German-speaking area. It links arguments from the social constructionist tradition, following Berger and Luckmann, with assumptions based in symbolic interactionism, hermeneutic sociology of knowledge, and the concepts of Michel Foucault. It argues thereby for a consistent theoretical and methodological grounding of a genuine social sciences perspective on discourse interested in the social production, circulation and transformation of knowledge, that is in social relations and politics of knowledge in the so-called ‘knowledge societies’. Distancing itself from Critical Discourse Analysis, Linguistics, Ethnomethodology inspired discourse analysis and the Analysis of Hegemonies, following Laclau and Mouffe, SKAD’s framework has been built up around research questions and concerns located in the social sciences, referring to public discourse and arenas as well as to more specific fields of (scientific, religious, etc.) discursive struggles and controversies around “problematizations” (Foucault).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The term “social relations of knowledge” alludes to Marx’s concept of the “relations of production”. For a detailed discussion of the history of sociology of knowledge, including all textual references mentioned below, see Keller (2005: 21–96) and Knoblauch (2005: 23–202).

  2. For a different although somehow complementary strategy in sociology see Clarke’s (2005) extension of grounded theory.

  3. In order to avoid confusion: The ethnomethodological tradition of discourse analysis looks for the situational producing of ordered verbal interaction and knowledges. This is very useful for in-depth analysis of singular discursive events, but it does not (and does not want to) grasp larger historical processes of knowledge circulation.

  4. The whole argument as well as references to symbolic interactionism and the comprehensive conceptual framework of SKAD is developed in Keller (2005: 179–278).

  5. For the basic principles cf. Keller (1998; 2001, 2003, 2005); for a recent overview on current research cf. Keller and Truschkat (2011) as well as the SKAD [WDA: Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse] network website at www.diskursanalyse.org.

  6. Studies using the SKAD framework focus eg. on environmental politics (Keller 1998), the symbolic production of space and cityscapes (Christmann 2004), health care policy (Bechmann 2007), the acknowledgement of competency in employment strategies (Truschkat 2008), public discourse on Satanism (Schmied-Knittel 2008), identity building in left wing social movements in Germany and Great Britain (Ullrich 2008) and Chinese migrant communities in Romania (Wundrak 2010), criminology (Singelnstein 2009), same-sex marriage TV controversies in the US (Zimmermann 2010) or political sciences’ mapping of suicide terrorism (Brunner 2010).

  7. To be sure: this is a different concept of discourse as in Foucault’s work.

  8. Consider e.g. the (widely forgotten?) work of Florian Znaniecki on Cultural Reality (Znaniecki 1919).

  9. This should not be considered a one to one translation from discourse to infrastructure, as the latter is rather seldom constituted by ‘one discourse’. In waste politics ways to ‘implementation’, there are many interfering issues, e.g. financial or hygienic restrictions (embedded in other discursive fields).

  10. The term “interpretive repertoire” was coined by Margaret Wetherell and Jonathan Potter, before Potter turned to a ‘purer’ ethnomethodologically orientated perspective. Cf. Keller (1998: 36), Wetherell and Potter (1988).

  11. “Hermeneutics of suspicion” refers to a hermeneutic approach which locates the ‘true’ meaning of a text (e.g. a book) in something outside the text: as the class position or habitus of its author, or, in psychoanalysis, in its unsolved early childhood development experiences.

References

  • Bechmann, S. C. (2007). Gesundheitssemantiken der Moderne. Eine Diskursanalyse der Debatten über die Reform der Krankenversicherung. Berlin: Sigma.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger, P., & Luckmann, Th. (1966). The social construction of reality. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowker, G. S., & Star, S. L. (2000). Sorting things out. Classification and its consequences. England: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brunner, C. (2011). Wissensobjekt Selbstmordattentat. Epistemische Gewalt und okzidentalistische Selbstvergewisserung in der Terrorismusforschung. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

  • Christmann, G. B. (2004). Dresdens Glanz, Stolz der Dresdner. Lokale Kommunikation, Stadtkultur und städtische Identität. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, A. (2005). Situational analysis. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, M. (1986). How institutions think. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1972a). The archeology of knowledge. London: Routledge [first published in French 1969].

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1972). The archeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. New York [first published in French 1969 and 1971].

  • Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge. Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977 (ed Colin Gordon). New York: Pantheon Press.

  • Foucault, M. (ed.) (1982). I, Pierre Rivière, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, my brother… A Case of Parricide in the 19th century. University of Nebraska Press [first published in French 1973].

  • Foucault, M. (1984). Polemics, politics and problematizations. Interview with Paul Rabinow. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), The Foucault reader (pp. 381–398). New York: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1986). The constitution of society. Outline of a theory of structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gusfield, J. (1981). The culture of public problems: Dinking-driving and the symbolic order. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hitzler, R., & Honer, A. (Eds.). (1997). Sozialwissenschaftliche Hermeneutik. Eine Einführung. Opladen: UTB.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hitzler, R., Reichertz, J., & Schröer, N. (1999). Das Arbeitsfeld einer hermeneutischen Wissenssoziologie. In R. Hitzler, J. Reichertz, & N. Schröer (Eds.), Hermeneutische Wissenssoziologie (pp. 9–13). Konstanz: UVK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hitzler, R., & Soeffner, H. G. (1994). Hermeneutik als Haltung und Handlung. Über methodisch kontrolliertes Verstehen. In N. Schröer (Ed.), Interpretative Sozialforschung. Auf dem Weg zu einer hermeneutischen Wissenssoziologie (pp. 28–55). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jørgensen, M. W., & Philipps, L. J. (2002). Discourse analysis as theory and method. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keller, R. (1998). Müll-Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion des Wertvollen (2nd ed. VS-Verlag 2009). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

  • Keller, R. (2001). Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse. In R. Keller et al. (Eds.), Handbuch Sozialwissenschaftliche Diskursanalyse Bd. 1: Theorien und Methoden (3rd ed., pp. 113–143). Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

  • Keller, R. (2003). Diskursforschung. Eine Einführung für SozialwissenschaflterInnen (4th ed. 2010; English translation to be published by SAGE in 2012). Opladen: Leske & Budrich.

  • Keller, R. (2005). Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse. Grundlegung eines Forschungsprogramms (3rd ed. 2011). Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

  • Keller, R. (2008). Michel Foucault. Konstanz: UVK.

  • Keller, R., & Truschkat, I. (Eds.). (2011). Praxis der Wissenssoziologischen Diskursanalyse Bd. 1. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (in press).

  • Kendall, G. and G. Wickham (2001). Understanding Culture. Cultural Studies, Order, Ordering. London.

  • Knoblauch, H. (2005). Wissenssoziologie. Konstanz: UVK/UTB.

    Google Scholar 

  • Law, J. (1994). Organizing modernity. Oxford: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, P. (1970). Freud and philosophy : An essay on interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, P. (1984). Time and narrative (Vol. 1). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmied-Knittel, I. (2008). Satanismus und ritueller Missbrauch. Eine wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse. Würzburg: Ergon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schütz, A. (1967). The phenomenology of the social world. Evanston: Northwestern University Press [1932].

  • Singelnstein, T. (2009). Diskurs und Kriminalität. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soeffner, H. G. (1989). Auslegung des Alltags–Der Alltag der Auslegung. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strauss, A. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge: University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research (2nd ed.). London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Truschkat, I. (2008). Kompetenzdiskurs und Bewerbungsgespräche. Eine Dispositivanalyse (neuer) Rationalitäten sozialer Differenzierung. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ullrich, P. (2008). Die Linke, Israel und Palästina. Nahostdiskurse in Großbritannien und Deutschland. Berlin: Dietz.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, M. (2002). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York: Penguin Books [1904/1905].

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wetherell, M., & Potter, J. (1988). Discourse analysis and the identification of interpretive repertoires. In C. Antaki (Ed.), Analysing everyday explanation: A casebook of methods (pp. 168–183). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wundrak, R. (2010). Die chinesische Community in Bukarest. Eine rekonstruktive diskursanalytische Fallstudie über Immigration und Transnationalismus. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimmermann, Chr. (2010). Familie als Konfliktfeld im amerikanischen Kulturkampf. Eine Diskursanalyse. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Znaniecki, F. (1919). Cultural reality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Abt. Soziologie, Fb 6 Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften, Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, University of Koblenz-Landau, Fortstraße 7, 76829, Landau, Germany

    Reiner Keller

Authors
  1. Reiner Keller
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Reiner Keller.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Keller, R. The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD). Hum Stud 34, 43–65 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-011-9175-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-011-9175-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation