Care of the self, resistance and subjectivity under neoliberal governmentalities
01 Feb 2013-Critical Studies in Education (Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group)-Vol. 54, Iss: 1, pp 85-96
TL;DR: In this paper, Ball and Olmedo approach the question of resistance in a different way, through Foucault's notion of "the care of the self" to make clear that social reality is not as inevitable as it may seem.
Abstract: Resistance is normally thought of as a collective exercise of public political activity. In this article, Ball and Olmedo approach the question of resistance in a different way, through Foucault's notion of ‘the care of the self’. Neoliberal reforms in education are producing new kinds of teaching subjects, new forms of subjectivity. It makes sense then that subjectivity should be the terrain of struggle, the terrain of resistance. A set of e-mail exchanges with teachers, based around Ball's work on performativity, enable the authors to access the work of power relations through the uncertainties, discomforts and refusals that these teachers bring to their everyday practice. By acting ‘irresponsibly’, these teachers take ‘responsibility’ for the care of their selves and in doing so make clear that social reality is not as inevitable as it may seem. This is not strategic action in the normal political sense. Rather it is a process of struggle against mundane, quotidian neoliberalisations, that creates the ...
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01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: The difference between the two approaches is that when Hall and his colleagues were writing these claims had a certain validity, while by the time Simon was developing his ‘governing through crime' thesis there had been a move away from a law and order society, involving a significant shift in the culture of control.
Abstract: There is a line of continuity between the claims made by Stuart Hall and his colleagues in their classic Policing the Crisis (1978) and Jonathan Simon’s widely referenced Governing through Crime (2008). Both publications argue that law and order has become a prominent feature of social and political life and an increasingly central part of the state’s strategy for governing civil society. Both publications see the growing focus on crime control as a moral panic and argue that a focus on crime, victimisation and fear of crime allows the state to engage in new and extended forms of hegemonic control (Brown 2008). Both publications aim to provide an ostensibly radical attack on claims by the state and of realist and other criminologists that tackling crime and victimisation are an intrinsically positive objective. The difference between the two approaches is, however, that when Hall and his colleagues were writing these claims had a certain validity, while by the time Simon was developing his ‘governing through crime’ thesis there had been a move away from a law and order society, involving a significant shift in the culture of control.
286 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the specificity and generality of performativity as a particular contemporary mode of power relations and attempted to articulate the risks of refusal through Foucault's notion of fearless speech or truth-telling (parrhesia).
Abstract: This paper extends the author’s previous enquiries and discussions of governmentality and neoliberal policy technologies in a number of ways. The paper explores the specificity and generality of performativity as a particular contemporary mode of power relations. It addresses our own imbrication in the politics of performative truths, through our ordinary everyday life and work. The paper is about the here and now, us, you and me, and who we are in neoliberal education. It draws upon and considers a set of ongoing email exchanges with a small group of teachers who are struggling with performativity. It enters the ‘theoretical silence’ of governmentality studies around the issues of resistance and contestation. Above all, the paper attempts to articulate the risks of refusal through Foucault’s notion of fearless speech or truth-telling (parrhesia).
253 citations
Cites background from "Care of the self, resistance and su..."
...…1980, 133) This paper takes up a line of enquiry that was begun in a series of papers on the mechanisms of performativity in education (Ball 2001, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2012) and explored further in a paper addressing the question of resistance in relation to neoliberalism (Ball and Olmedo 2013)....
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TL;DR: The authors argue that the current narrowing of early years assessment, along with increased inspection and surveillance, operates as a policy technology leading to an intensification of "school readiness" pressures upon the earliest stage of education.
Abstract: Following the election of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat UK coalition Government in 2010, there has been an urgent intensification and focus upon early years numeracy and literacy and promoting systematic synthetic phonics. This paper argues that the current narrowing of early years assessment, along with increased inspection and surveillance, operates as a policy technology leading to an intensification of ‘school readiness’ pressures upon the earliest stage of education. The paper suggests that this governance has encouraged a functional ‘datafication’ of early years pedagogy so that early years teacher’s work is increasingly constrained by performativity demands to produce ‘appropriate’ data. The article argues that early years high-stakes national assessments act as a ‘meta-policy’, ‘steering’ early years pedagogy ‘from a distance’ and have the power to challenge, disrupt and constrain early years teacher’s deeply held child-centred pedagogical values.
140 citations
Cites background from "Care of the self, resistance and su..."
...…of being marginalised as early years teachers were ‘burdened with the responsibility to perform’ and submit to a ‘new’ moral system’ (Ball and Olmedo 2013, 88) that has the potential to reduce the rich competent child (and teacher) to a ‘measureable teaching subject’ (Ball and Olmedo 2013, 92)....
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...…were in danger of being marginalised as early years teachers were ‘burdened with the responsibility to perform’ and submit to a ‘new’ moral system’ (Ball and Olmedo 2013, 88) that has the potential to reduce the rich competent child (and teacher) to a ‘measureable teaching subject’ (Ball and…...
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TL;DR: The authors explores the effects of Neoliberal policies and New Public Management pracitces on teachers and principals and the ways they result in a "new professionalism" and provides a framework for studying how these new polices and practices might be resisted, as well as a description of characteristics of the new professional and what professionalism might look like if it were grounded in community and advocacy.
Abstract: Neoliberal reforms of public education do more than shape policy and curriculum; they also influence educators’ understanding of themselves as professionals, driving at the very core of what it means to be a teacher or leader. This article explores the effects of Neoliberal policies and New Public Management pracitces on teachers and principals and the ways they result in a “new professionalism.” The authors provide a framework for studying how these new polices and practices might be resisted, as well as a description of characteristics of the new professional and what professionalism might look like if it were grounded in community and advocacy.
88 citations
Cites background from "Care of the self, resistance and su..."
...Critical Vigilance: individuals’ careful introspection and critical thinking about competing interests that may pose a threat to their professional identities (Ball, 2015; Ball & Olmedo, 2013) 2....
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...Ball and Olmedo (2013) refer to this critical stance as a “constant vigilance” (p. 94)....
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...The other may be at the extreme end of normalization, when the accumulation of techniques of control have become so thorough that behaving “irresponsibly” becomes the only ethical alternative (Ball & Olmedo, 2013)....
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...As Ball and Olmedo (2013) recognize, “there are costs to be considered here” (p. 94), and these also include the stress and time it takes to maintain a critical perspective in the face of constant circulation of regimes of truth....
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References
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01 Jan 1983
TL;DR: The ideas which I would like to discuss here represent neither a theory nor a methodology as mentioned in this paper, but rather a history of different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects.
Abstract: The ideas which I would like to discuss here represent neither a theory nor a methodology. I would like to say, first of all, what has been the goal of my work during the last twenty years. It has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis. My objective, instead, has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects. My work has dealt with three modes of objectification which transform human beings into subjects. The first is the modes of inquiry which try to give themselves the status of sciences; for example, the objectivizing of the speaking subject in grammaire generale, philology, and linguistics. Or again, in this first mode, the objectivizing of the productive subject, the subject who labors, in the analysis of wealth and of economics. Or, a third example, the objectivizing of the sheer fact of being alive in natural history or biology. In the second part of my work, I have studied the objectivizing of the subject in what I shall call "dividing practices." The subject is either
8,762 citations
Book•
04 Oct 1999
TL;DR: The Second Edition Basic Concepts and Themes Government and Governmentality as discussed by the authors An Analytics of Government Analyzing Regimes of Government Genealogy and Government Governmentality Genealogy, Government Liberalism, Critique and 'the Social' Neo-Liberalism and Foucault Dependency and Empowerment: Two Case Studies Dependency empowerment Conclusion Pastoral power, police and reason of state Pastoral Power Reason of state and Police Conclusion Bio-Politics and Sovereignty Bio-politics Sovereignty and the Governmentalization of the State Liberalism Economy Security Law and Norm Society and Social Government Author
Abstract: Introduction to the Second Edition Basic Concepts and Themes Government and Governmentality An Analytics of Government Analyzing Regimes of Government Genealogy and Governmentality Genealogy and Government Liberalism, Critique and 'the Social' Neo-Liberalism and Foucault Dependency and Empowerment: Two Case Studies Dependency Empowerment Conclusion Pastoral Power, Police and Reason of State Pastoral Power Reason of State and Police Conclusion Bio-Politics and Sovereignty Bio-Politics Sovereignty and the Governmentalization of the State Liberalism Economy Security Law and Norm Society and Social Government Authoritarian Governmentality The Illiberality of Liberal Government Bio-Politics, Race and Non-Liberal Rule Neo-Liberalism and Advanced Liberal Government Society, Freedom and Reform Advanced Liberal Government A Post-Welfarist Regime of the Social Risk and Reflexive Government Two Approaches to Risk Risk and Reflexive Modernization Insurance and Government Reflexive Government International Governmentality Foucault and the International Building on Foucault Conclusion: 'Not Bad... but Dangerous' Postscript to the Second Edition: The Crisis of Neo-Liberal Governmentality?
5,006 citations
TL;DR: The ideas which I would like to discuss here represent neither a theory nor a methodology as mentioned in this paper, but rather a history of different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects.
Abstract: The ideas which I would like to discuss here represent neither a theory nor a methodology. I would like to say, first of all, what has been the goal of my work during the last twenty years. It has not been to analyze the phenomena of power, nor to elaborate the foundations of such an analysis. My objective, instead, has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects. My work has dealt with three modes of objectification which transform human beings into subjects. The first is the modes of inquiry which try to give themselves the status of sciences; for example, the objectivizing of the speaking subject in grammaire generale, philology, and linguistics. Or again, in this first mode, the objectivizing of the productive subject, the subject who labors, in the analysis of wealth and of economics. Or, a third example, the objectivizing of the sheer fact of being alive in natural history or biology. In the second part of my work, I have studied the objectivizing of the subject in what I shall call "dividing practices." The subject is either
4,932 citations
"Care of the self, resistance and su..." refers background or methods in this paper
...They are a refusal of these abstractions, of economic and ideological state violence which ignore who we are individually, and also a refusal of a scientific or administrative inquisition which determines who one is’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 212)....
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...On the one hand, subject relates to the state of subjection ‘to someone else by control or dependence’; on the other hand, it refers to the self-configuration of an identity ‘by a conscience or self-knowledge’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 212)....
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...(Foucault, 1982, p. 217; emphasis in the original)....
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...(Foucault, 1982, p. 213) *Corresponding author....
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...They do not look for the “chief enemy,” but for the immediate enemy’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 211)....
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Journal Article•
TL;DR: After decades of pioneering work in the neurosciences, the fundamental importance of brain biology in the human condition has now become evident and one of the new syntheses will draw upon neurochemistry and neurophysiology, and it is to the great credit of the Hungarian neuroscience that pharmacologist Joseph Knoll has now ventured a first attempt.
Abstract: About 50 years of demolition work, it's time now for a return to the grand syntheses. Two of the great syntheses of the 19th century have now been shattered. Marxism lies in fragments. And psychoanalysis has largely drifted outside of psychiatry to find a new and doubtless temporary home in departments of literary studies. To be sure, the third of the great syntheses, Darwin's theory of evolution, remains intact. But otherwise, as far as the eye can see, there is rubble. The time for new attempts at synthesis is now nigh. After decades of pioneering work in the neurosciences, the fundamental importance of brain biology in the human condition has now become evident. Surely one of the new syntheses will draw upon neurochemistry and neurophysiology, and it is to the great credit of the Hungarian neurosciences that pharmacologist Joseph Knoll has now ventured a first attempt. This attempt will be widely discussed and will form the platform for other work that may end up building firm bridges between "neuroenhancers" and behavior - and, what's more, to show how this relationship has shaped the evolution of thousands of years of human destiny, a great synthesis indeed.
4,379 citations
"Care of the self, resistance and su..." refers background in this paper
...…our own judgements, or, in other words, to develop a particular technology of the self according to our own principles, an aesthetics of the self (Foucault, 1992, 2010b), which are focused on the question of who we are and who we might become, that is on askesis and ‘the labour of becoming’…...
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