Abstract

Embodied in his concept of discursive formation, Michel Foucault provides a critical tool for elucidating the epistemological function of rhetoric. Foucault's discursive formation serves as the theoretical base upon which this research establishes its conceptual framework. However, inasmuch as discursive formation serves as a framework for the interpretation of a social text, it does not provide a method for explicating how discursive formation is experienced. Accordingly, this research incorporated a hermeneutic-phenomenological method of analysis into Foucault's general theory of discursive formation, serving to identify interpretive difficulties and rhetorical contradictions experienced by persons participating in a discursive formation. ;A social text well suited for analysis both in terms of discursive formation and phenomenology was the lived-world experience of social service caseworkers. Both in caseworker core training, where incoming caseworkers attend a series of seminars designed to immerse them into the rhetoric of social intervention, and in their daily activities, caseworkers are "formed," empowered, and legitimized by a discourse comprised of certain discursive practices, rules, roles, power relations, and body of knowledge. This research explicates how, as agents of social intervention, trainers and caseworkers experience discursive formation in the Ohio Department of Human Services Children Services Agency in Washington County, Ohio. ;By examining the discursive practices of caseworkers and by inquiring into how these practices are experienced, a major self-negation became apparent in the role and function of the caseworker: the caseworker as client advocate stands in direct opposition to the caseworker as protective authority. The tension between the two roles creates alienation, disempowerment, and disconnectedness. Further, women caseworkers are submitted to a normative power that often results in stress, denial of womanhood, relational difficulties, and premature job longevity