"Since my research always, in one way or another, thematises the relationship between discourse and identity, Michel Foucault plays a central role for me. He is the first man of discourse analysis, and his work on the Archeology of Knowledge continues to be a core point of reference in my work. One does not always get unproblematic answers - e.g. where the relationship between subject, identity and discourse is concerned - from Foucault, but one always finds in him a constructively provocative discussion partner. "
Foucault yes. I love his theory about heterotopia. And I would apply this theory to all spatial and of course cultural analysis. To give a concrete example, I would use it to interpret the user's experience of virtual space and game addiction in an analysis of computer games. Or on the user's experience of reality in social media and and their own avatars.
For me, Foucault has first and foremost served as a stumbling block. As a humanistic critical theorist, I have never found his anti-humanism and tendential determinism convincing, but his analyses of power have nonetheless irritated me sufficiently, in a productive way, to effect important nuances in my understanding of power and conflict as conditions.
To me as a law student, Foucault equals punishment. In his book Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison (1975), he maps the genesis om the modern prison system and explains how the prison may be understood as the strictest part of the panoptic society. It is, in my opinion, important for lawyers and others working in the legal system to have good perspective on how and why we punish. Foucault provides an interesting and well argued attempt at such perspective.
