Wiwit Kurniawan 04 Oct 2011 The Respond Paper to Foucault Archeology and genealogy

Foucault gave remarkable contribution to social theory for religious study by making a concept about archeology and genealogy. Although, the study that given Foucault seen to like history study, but actually that is not history study as usual. when he studied about madness, he is not only explain historically what the madness is, but explained how the discourse of madness formed and shifted of madness discourse from medieval age, revolution era industry up to the present day. Foucault called these analysis as analysis archeology, that is look for what conditions, context and relation so that make possible a discourse can be established. Besides that, genealogy analysis make possible to reveal or break into the power relation that form the discourse. Foucault also concluded power and knowledge one unitary. Concept that carried by Foucault gave benefit contribution to religion study development, his method is very effective to analyze a phenomenon and he believed that a discourse or truth is not something that given but it is a construction. For example, Edward said used method archeology and genealogy to break into the discourse of Orientalism. In Saids book titled Orientalism, said explained to how discourse of Orientalism formed as according to the interest of orientalists (West). The East/Orient was not represented by Orientalist as East it is, but the East representation was constructed by West. Said also revealed four power kinds that operate in the discourse of Orientalism. In his study Said explained how West represented the East unfairly. By deconstructing the Orientalism discourse by genealogy and archeology, Said expect East as The Other who cannot represent them self can represent them self. So, I believe that genealogy and archeology also can be used for studying a group or sect of religion in Indonesia that is considered as a minority or marginal group. Genealogy and archeology are able to reveal the condition and episteme (in Foucault term) that construct the image of this group and the relation of power that operate in discourse in order to maintain the discourse (regime of knowledge). So, genealogy and archeology are very useful in development of religious study, by both methods as a surgeons knife that can break in the reality better and explain the phenomena better.