Interrogating Incest explores the relationship between feminism and the work of Michel Foucault around the specific topic of incest. Whereas sociologists initially concerned themselves with the origin and function of the taboo, later questions have stemmed from feminist work in this area. These have often theorised incest within the realm of sexual violence. Yet, important as this is, there has been little account of how feminist work itself relates to other ways of talking about and understanding incest. In Interrogating Incest Vikki Bell focuses on incest and its place in sociological theory, feminist theory and criminal law. She discusses the argument in Foucault that incest is at a point of tension between the deployment of alliance (kinship) and the deployment of sexuality. In addition, she explores how the notion of the incest taboo' might be worked back into the feminist understanding of incest. By examining incest from a critical Foucauldian framework Vikki Bell considers how feminist discourse on incest itself fits into other ways of talking about sex and offers a detailed analysis of the concepts of power and knowledge in relation to the Foucault-feminist debate. Closely surveying the historical bacground to incest legislation and the theoretical issues involved, she delineates the impact of the different ways of understanding incest on the shape of the legislation and shows what uncomfortable questions and important dilemmas are raised by viewing the crminialisation of incest within the Foucauldian framework.