Poststructuralism refers to the ideas and works, developed since the 1960s, of a number of mainly French intellectuals; Derrida, Lacan, Foucault, the later Barthes, and Kristeva are some of the most prominent names. Roots reach back into Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Freud and Marx. The main currents of structuralist thought are extended and, arguably, radicalised, in this disparate body of thought, first in relation to language, identity and meaning, and second in relation to the human subject. Derrida, notably, argues against the totalising and fixed character of a structuralist analysis of language and texts, holding that the relations between signified and signifier (within the sign) are indeterminate and that meaning is slippery and irreducible to structures of difference (the classic structuralist premise). The notion of a unified and rational subject self has been replaced with a subjectivity in process and the product of discourses; much poststructuralism opposes the notion of any essential self, or indeed any sense of the real outside of cultural systems of discourse. Foucault’s investigations of the history of discourses extended into social power, conceptions of the human body and self, sexuality, architecture, and the spatial organisation of society.

A general trend of poststructuralist method, often termed deconstruction, is against essentialism and towards an unsettling of any firm, detached and neutral conclusions; truth claims are internal to any particular discourse, it is claimed, and any fixed transcendental origins of knowledge are denied. Deconstruction is best seen perhaps as a destabilising method throwing into doubt the authority claims of established interests and traditions, opening up alternative spaces, readings and meanings. With regard to the challenge to neutrality, fixed origins and identities there is a similarity to some trends of postpositivist philosophy which insist on situating knowledges as social and cultural achievements.

The implications of poststructuralism for any field of social inquiry are immense. Influences are readily apparent in postprocessual archaeology regarding epistemology, method and social ontology.

References

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Bapty, I. and Yates, T. (eds) 1990: Archaeology after Structuralism. London, Routledge.

Olsen, B., 2005: Scenes from a troubled engagement. Post-structuralism and material culture studies, in C. Tilley, W. Keane, S. Kuechler, M. Rowlands, and P. Spyer (eds), Handbook of Material Culture. London, 85-103.