Analysing political engagement: an interpretive and functionalist discourse analysis of evolvingpolitical subjectivities among public activists and intellectuals with a Moroccan background inFlanders is a PhD on the relationship between politics, discourse, and the self. Jan Zienkowskiobtained his degree of doctor in linguistics on January, 26th, 2012 at the University of Antwerp. Themain supervisor of this project was prof. dr. Jef Verschueren. Co-supervisors were prof. dr. Marie-Claire Foblets and prof. dr. Henk De Smaele.By means of a theoretical and methodological exploration of poststructuralist, pragmatist andlinguistic pragmatic approaches to discourse and subjectivity, Jan Zienkowski constructs aninterpretive and functionalist heuristic for analysing large-scale socio-political debates. As such, thisPhD is more than a set of case studies of the discourse of activists and intellectuals involved in theFlemish minority debate.The author empirically investigates the way people use abstract categories such as identity,community, and integration. He describes the various functions these notions perform in relation to apreferred sense of self and in relation to a preferred sense of politics. This involves an exploration ofthe large-scale interpretive logics people use when linking these concepts to each other and to thesocio-political practices constitutive of the public sphere.This PhD thesis addresses key issues related to discourse, subjectivity and political engagement. Howdo activists and intellectuals analyse, criticise, and shape the various worlds wherein they findthemselves? In what ways are preferred modes of politics linked to a preferred sense of self? How dopeople manage to make sense of the multiplicity of abstract categories that structure socio-politicaldebates? How can one identify the boundaries of a debate? Why do people value one set of abstractcategories over another? And how may one empirically investigate the way one functionally relates apreferred sense of self to a preferred mode of ...