FERRAMENTAS TEÓRICO-METODOLÓGICAS FOUCAULTIANAS E A METODOLOGIA DE PESQUISA EM DIREITO

Abstract

This study aims at questioning the practice of research in law under the light of the poststructuralist perspective - based on Michel Foucault’s studies – in which subjects and objects are produced by means of language. Devices that restrict society (codes, norms, regulations, principles, rules and systems) are frequently considered natural and/or understood as absolute truths, ruled by the binary logic of cause and effect. However, Foucault proposes to de-construct these conceptions, due to the understanding that such devices are historical, contextual constructions, thus, they are relative. He presents a re-dimensioning of artifacts and cultural practices which function as utterances that “invent” subjects and objects in three study fields: “knowledge-being”, “powerbeing”
and “self-being”. Of these three, this study is based on the two first. In the “knowledgebeing” studies, Foucault analyses procedures which produce, distribute, make go around and regulate utterances; he also discusses the rules of production of discursive practices, understanding that as they are questioned, there is the possibility of change. In the “power-being” studies, he analyses
power as an element which is able to explain how ‘knowledges’ are produced and how the subjects are constituted in the articulation of power-knowledge. Taking into consideration Foucault’s perspective that treats language as a discursive practice, producer of subjects and objects, we pose the following question: what contributions can Foucault’s work Eu, Pierre Rivière …, offer to research methodology in the Law Course? Even though it may not be pertinent to speak about a foucaultian method or a foucaultian theory, unless the two terms are understood in a manner diverse from the habitual one, we may say that this paper, based on the thinkings of Foucault and other foucaultian authors, analyses this work focusing on the theoretical-methodological tools which underlie it, as well as the different discourses which make it up and which produced different subjects and objects. The analysis does not try to disclose truth contents or hidden meanings, but is concerned with the truth rules which are set by the discourses, and which determine what is true and not-true. Understanding, like Foucault, that ideas, categories and methods are constantly being transformed and acquire different meanings through time, this study has no intention of being conclusive, but tries to put forward a possibility, among others, of exploring a work, searching for its application in research methodology. Due to the complexity of the practices and the relations involved in the investigation procedures, the latter have need to be questioned to be understood. For this purpose, the meditations on knowledge, power, language and discourse are indispensable to those who dedicate themselves to studies in the area of human sciences. Taking into consideration the need to develop researchers in law with visions which are distinct from the traditional ones, this paper points to the contribution of Foucault’s studies in the search for an
understanding of new and different investigative ways, which may be employed in the juridical field.