The circulation of Amway's discourse: from control to social practice

Abstract

In this paper, we intend to contribute to the debate about the circulation of the discourses. To do that, we analyze aspects regarding the circulation of Amway’s discourse, a North-American network sales company that has been working in Brazil for a while. Precisely, we analyze the conditions of this circulation at the time it was more intensively, ie, in the 90s, when there were thousands of people in several parts of the country selling the company´s products or consuming them. This study has been based on French Discourse Analysis with focus on both Michel Foucault’s insights on the control mechanisms of discourse and Maingueneau’s reformulated notion of discursive practice. The analysis reveals that Amway’s discourse displays features of a doctrine, and, as a discursive practice, it cannot be conceived of as separated from the subjects who convey it, nor from its hierarchical organization, nor from the events that the company promotes and those which are promoted under its name. In these terms, the analysis shows how the discourse is not only a set of texts, but also concerns to the institutional network related to the social group that the enunciation of discourse presupposes and makes it possible.