A concept used by among others Foucault to describe "thematic fields" of the exchange of meaning (e.g. gender, punishment, education, media), and the movement of words and symbols that flow through these. The concept of discourse implies an idea of conflict and meaningful dissonance, and power takes center stage in this picture. Discourse is not so much concerned with conflicts between concrete interests, but more focused on the total "language forms" that these interests are expressed in. Discursive power (or hegemony) thus becomes a question of the dominance of one language over another (for an example of this, see Ardener 1972).