Guest Editors: Gatitu Kiguru (Kenyatta University, Kenya) and Phyllis Mwangi (Kenyatta University, Kenya).

Foucault contends that ‘power is everywhere’, diffused and embodied in discourse, knowledge and ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault, 1991). The view of power as a regime of truth acknowledges the fact that power is in a constant state of negotiation. A critical study of political discourse can reveal the discursive practices that shape the prevailing power structures, sustain and challenge them. Regimes of truth are discursively defined, reinforced and redefined and the avenue for this issocial institutions (education, religion, law,media, political, economic etc.). These discursive practices shape society and the power asymmetries in it. The traditional view of power is almost always negative. However, it is important to remember that power need not always be negative. It is true that power ‘excludes’; it ‘represses’; it ‘censors’; it ‘abstracts’; it ‘masks’; it ‘conceals’. However; it is also true that power produces: it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth(Foucault 1991). The fluidity of power allows the powerless to stage resistance.

This thematic issue of Language, Discourse, &Societywelcomes both theoretical and empirical articles that focus on how political discourses in historical, colonial and neo-colonial contexts replicate and reinforce dominant regimes of power. It also welcomes contributions that show howthe macro-structures of power are discursively challenged and even reengineered through discourse in micro-relations that are thecapillaries of normal everyday practices(Välikangas, A &Seeck, H, 2011). The thematic issue specifically encourages contributions rooted in the sociology of language, sociolinguistics, but also which take an interdisciplinary approach to the call topic and thus employ the methods of critical linguistic enquiry to economic, political and sociological problems.

While the guest editors are notably influenced by Foucault’s views on power as well as the views and methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, contributions that use other approaches are highly welcome.

Submissions can be done in English, Spanish and French.