This book focuses on the discursive processes that allow activists to make sense of themselves
and of the modes of politics they engage in. It shows how political and metadiscursive
awareness develop in tandem with a reconfiguration of one's sense of self. The author offers an
integrated pragmatic and poststructuralist perspective on self and subjectivity. He draws on
Essex style discourse theory early pragmatist philosophy and linguistic pragmatics arguing
for a notion of discourse as a multi-dimensional practice of articulation. Demonstrating the
analytical power of this perspective he puts his approach to work in an analysis of activist
discourse on integration and minority issues in Flanders Belgium. Subjects articulate a whole
range of norms values identities and narratives to each other when they engage in political
discourse. This book offers a way to analyse the logics that structure political awareness and
the associated boundaries for discursive self-interpretation.
