Discourse analysis constitutes a promising programme of research, with relevance to all fields of the social sciences.²⁴ It aims at reorientat­ing the social sciences, which are currently challenged by the recognition of the limits of the social and intellectual trajectories of modernity. Discourse analysis can thus be said to provide a relay between the more traditional concerns of the social sciences and the central insights of postmodern thinking. Hence, discourse analysis recognizes the need to analyse relatively stable patterns of social relations, but rejects traditional attempts to translate social phenomena into anonymous structures. It emphasizes the effectiveness of social agency, but counters more recent attempts to revive an action theory based on the rationality of self-conscious social agents. Finally, it insists on placing struggle and conflict at the heart of its social ontology, but opts for a non-objectivist understanding of these basic features.