On the Possibilities and Impossibilities of Love : Mapping the discursive field of love-relationships, its components, conflicts and challenges

Abstract: In this thesis I reframe theories of love-relationships in late modernity (by Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman and Ulrich Beck & Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim) in relation to a general framework of discursive theory (inspired by Michel Foucault). I suggest that current developments and contradictions in the field of love-relationships with advantage can be understood in terms of discourse and discursive conflict. Utilizing the discursive framework, I conceptualize two conflicting discursive regimes (as romantic love and individualized freedom), and their components. With these components in mind, I explore how contradicting discursive components are problematized in established risk-discourse, using cases of popular culture as illustrative reference. Risk-discourses force short-term practical solutions, and put pressure on further discursive change by inducing anxiety and cognitive dissonance. Future discourse will have to adapt to several conditions, including the (in)compatibility of discursive components, how well practical strategies work out, how social interaction is organized, and how discursive deconstruction unavoidably have consequences for the fundaments of love itself.