Poststructuralism and Postmodernism

Abstract Poststructuralism covers a number of associated analyses of the relationship between power and knowledge, which have in common the view that knowledge is always contextual, partial, and fragmentary, but also is never neutral and shapes the power relations between individuals or groupings. Poststructuralists reject the notion of a single “truth,” and criticize grand theories or systems of thought that make claims to uncover truth, including religion, science, and social scientific realism. They also suggest that this relationship between power and knowledge can have consequences for subjectivity and identity. Postmodernism is closely associated with poststructuralism, and seeks to undermine the grand narratives of modernist social organization and domination including capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, and heteronormativity. It adopts poststructuralist epistemologies and ontologies in preference to structuralist explanations, to expose the contradictions within these grand narratives of control or domination. In so doing, it also suggests means to resist and refuse domination.