scholarly journals «Basically, I am here to help you»

2021 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-326
Author(s):  
Kristin Engh Førde ◽  
Arnfinn J. Andersen
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Common Good ◽  
State Power ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Pastoral Power ◽  
And Control

AbstractI denne artikkelen undersøkes bekymringssamtalen, som ofte blir omtalt som et sentralt verktøy i norske myndigheters arbeid med å forebygge radikalisering og voldelig ekstremisme. Slike samtaler blir gjennomført med personer som er antatt å være i risiko for radikalisering. Hensikten er å innhente informasjon, korrigere atferd, identifisere behov for hjelp, samt å tilby hjelp dersom det trengs. Inspirert av Foucault og hans tenkning om pastoralmakt analyserer vi bekymringssamtalen som myndighetsutøvelse, der til dels motstridende agendaer – av statlig kontroll og statlig omsorg – kommer sammen i det som konseptualiseres som «bekymring». Videre argumenterer vi for at bekymringssamtalen eksemplifiserer og synliggjør mer overordnede dilemmaer og konflikter i myndighetenes forebyggingsinnsats på dette feltet, hvor bekymring gir mening og legitimitet til det vi ser som en problematisk sammenstilling av omsorgs- og kontrolltiltak og av sosialpolitiske og sikkerhetspolitiske agendaer.AbstractIn this article we set our sights on what is often referred to as a key instrument for countering violent extremism in Norway, the conversation of concern [Bekymringssamtale in Norwegian], usually referred to in English as the police conversation intervention. The conversation is conducted with individuals assumed to be at risk of radicalisation with the aim of obtaining information, modifying behaviour, identifying any needs for help, and offering help if needed. We argue that this intervention clearly demonstrates certain dilemmas and conflicts inherent in the Norwegian Government’s recent policies on counter-extremism, where the concept of «concern» [bekymring] encompasses control and care, and includes agendas related to security and welfare, respectively. Applying a Foucauldian conceptual framework, we analyse the conversation of concern as a technique of pastoral power in which conflicting agendas interact in problematic ways, and the exercising of state power and control is neutralised through a notion of a general common good; «concern».

scholarly journals A Model of Discipline: The Rule(s) of Midnight Football and the Production of Order in Subjects and Society

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 450-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ekholm ◽  
Magnus Dahlstedt
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Disciplinary Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Pastoral Power ◽  
And Control ◽  
Suburban Landscape

This article explores the rationalities of social change of a sports-based intervention, midnight football, carried out on two sites in the suburban landscape of Sweden. Based on interviews with coaches and managers and on-site observations, we examine how rationalities and technologies of social change are promoted, how technologies of social change are assumed to operate within the intervention, and how the intervention objectives are formed in relation to the technologies promoted. The analysis is guided by a Foucauldian perspective on disciplinary and pastoral power. It displays how various conceptualizations of risk underpin the intervention, and, in particular, technologies of spatial and temporal diversion. Youth are (dis)located to perceived sites of order and rule, as midnight football is portrayed as a regulated arena in opposition to outside sites of disorder. To form and visualize the rules of law, coaches, ascribed the position of role-models and law-makers, have a particularly important role to play, embodying law, rule, and conduct. In addition, disciplinary power operates through normalizing sanctions, stressing the corrective influence of coaches and readjustment of youth conduct. The technologies promoted are underpinned by goals to form a certain order of subjects, where ideals of conduct can be transferred and proliferated to the world outside, forming order and security in society. Those deemed at-risk and in need of social change, are addressed by means of discipline and control. Conclusively, the technologies promoted appear more as a symptom of existing patterns of inequalities and segregation than as a solution to the challenges confronted.

scholarly journals In and around life: biopolitics in the tropics

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Paulo Gomes Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
And Control

This article is a reflection on the concepts of biopower and biopolitics. Mapping some of the main approaches to this topic, the paper highlights a tension between policies that seek to encourage and potentialize life and individuals excluded and left to die. The article involves two main concerns: one that questions the existence of biopolitical frameworks that end up producing bodies and subjectivities as mere fruits of the exercise of power and control, and, thus, are circumscribed by them; and another that questions how to read this scenario in the tropics. While contemplating these concerns, the text then reflects on the possible limits and potentialities of this conceptual framework.

Homeschooling as a Barometer of State Power and Control in the Czech Republic

2021 ◽  
pp. 250-266
Author(s):  
Irena Kašparová
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
State Power ◽  
Compulsory Schooling ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
And Control

The chapter introduces homeschooling in the Czech Republic, Europe, from the perspective of an anthropologist, who herself had both observed the phenomenon scientifically, as well as practiced it with her four children. The author introduces homeschooling as an important social topic, that may be regarded as a barometer of state power and control over its citizens. The text takes the reader onto a historical journey through various regimes that have governed the country, from the dawn of compulsory schooling under the Habsburg dynasty in the 18th century, through to two World Wars, onto socialism, communism, and finally, democratic government and its various turbulences over the last 30 years. Based upon participant observation, interviews, autoethnography, and secondary sources analysis, the author shows nuances and niches of homeschooling within the state compulsory education system, its battle for recognition, inclusion, and sustainability, which is achieved not only by law itself but also by five pillars of successful homeschooling, noted at the end of the chapter.

Legal Informalism, Power and Liberal Governance

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Van Krieken
Keyword(s):  
Research Agenda ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
State Power ◽  
Informal Justice ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Popular Justice ◽  
Government Work ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Extension Of State ◽  
And Control

Although critiques of legal formalism have been rethought over recent years to produce a 'new informalism' in legal theory which draws on Michel Foucault's approach to power, this essay examines the ways in which there are still a variety of problems in the understanding of power, social control and freedom utilized by studies of 'informal' or 'popular' justice. It briefly outlines the ideas and practices encompassed by the concept of informal justice, and identifies the critique of legal informalism as an extension of state power and control as well as the counter-critiques that underlie the 'new informalism'. I then go on to argue that the problems continuing to face the understanding of informal justice in legal theory include going beyond seeing power as radiating outwards from some 'thing' called 'the state', as well as beyond the opposition of individual and community liberty to 'state power', towards a more complex and nuanced understanding of the ways in which law and government work through individual and community 'freedom', rather than against them. I conclude with some comments on the kind of research agenda concerning legal informalism encouraged by Foucault's conceptions of power, government and freedom.

Contemporary Capitalism and the Distribution of Power in Society

2019 ◽  
pp. 131-149
Author(s):  
John Scott
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Corporate Power ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
State Authority ◽  
Economic Markets ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Class And Status ◽  
And Control

This article examines Weber’s partial and fragmentary discussions of power and domination. It reconstructs a basis for Weber’s argument through introducing ideas of persuasive and coercive influence and shows how Weber examined these forms of power in structures of class and status and in views of state authority and patterns of domination in economic markets. It is shown that the Weberian conceptualization can illuminate many ongoing debates in studies of corporate power and control over state power. The application of the ideas is considered through current evidence on the financialization and globalization of economic domination and the transformation and globalization of state power in contemporary capitalism.

scholarly journals A paroquialização como fenômeno geopolítico e estratégia biopolítica no processo de formação da república no Brasil

2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (310) ◽  
pp. 318
Author(s):  
Rogério Luiz de Souza
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Early Period ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Technological Paradigm ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Pastoral Power ◽  
The Republic ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Catholic Church

O artigo tem o objetivo de compreender o processo geopolítico de constituição da República no Brasil a partir das tecnologias do poder pastoral, disciplinar e normalizador adotadas pela Igreja católica. Parte-se do pressuposto de que foi preciso reativar e redefinir o poder pastoral enquanto tecnologia de poder e atribuir à Igreja católica a tarefa de reorganizar a repartição espacial do território brasileiro como condição para a multiplicação dos dispositivos disciplinares na sociedade e para o controle normalizador da população e sua prevenção biossocial. Mais que a criação de dioceses, a proliferação de paróquias constituiuse como a mais eficaz maquinaria geopolítica dos primeiros tempos da República. Esta governabilidade republicana requereu a constituição de uma geopolítica por meio de um poder pastoral para fazer aparecer um novo paradigma tecnológico e ordenador do exercício do poder normalizador e estatal sobre a população brasileira. A República que nasceu no Brasil precisou transformar seu próprio território em mecanismo estratégico e tecnológico de controle da sua população, em vista de uma lógica do biopoder. A paróquia, como organismo administrativo da Igreja católica e modelador do espaço geográfico e político brasileiro, mostrou-se o melhor veículo da ação governamental na tarefa de apresentar a República ao Brasil.Abstract: The objective of the article is to understand the geopolitical process of the Brazilian Republic’s constitution starting from the technological pastoral power, the disciplinary, and the normalizing power adopted by the Catholic Church. It is assumed that it was necessary to reactivate and redefine pastoral power as a technological power and to assign to the Catholic Church the task of reorganizing the spatial distribution of Brazilian territory as a condition for the multiplication of disciplinary devices in society to normalize the control of the population. During the early period of the Republic, the proliferation of parishes established an even more powerful and effective geopolitical power and control over the population than the dioceses. This republican governance required the use of geopolitics by the pastoral power to construct the appearance of a new technological paradigm and implementation of the normalizing of state power over the Brazilian population. The Republic that was established in Brazil needed to transform its own strategic and technological mechanism to control its population, with the view of the logic of biopower. The parish, as an administrative body of the Catholic Church and shaped the Brazilian geographical and political space, proved to be the best vehicle for government action in the task of presenting the idea of the Republic to Brazil.Keywords: Secular republic; Catholic Church; Parishes; Geopolitics; Biopower.

Power and control: transferring energy when there is work to be done

2005 ◽  
pp. 29-30
Author(s):  
Naveen Sharma ◽  
William Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Power And Control ◽  
And Control
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