Reinventing the Employable Citizen: A Perspective for Social Work

Rediscovering Recovery: Reconceptualizing Underlying Assumptions of Citizenship and Interrelated Notions of Care and Support

“…The recovery paradigm can be sharply criticized because of the socially constructed norm of the self-managing, self-sufficient, and independent consumer-citizen who is fully responsible for his/her own choices [24]. A conceptualization of citizenship as normative implies that citizenship is perceived as a status and an achievement [46], mainly based on a norm of active and “good” citizenship that is imposed on individuals and persistently at work in both discourse and practice [23]. In this normative notion of citizenship that promotes “projects of the self” [47], people with mental health problems are expected to become self-sufficient and productive citizens within the scope of self-responsibility, as the responsibility for leading a fulfilling life is individualized [48].…”

“…In this normative notion of citizenship that promotes “projects of the self” [47], people with mental health problems are expected to become self-sufficient and productive citizens within the scope of self-responsibility, as the responsibility for leading a fulfilling life is individualized [48]. As such, “citizenship becomes conditional on individuals (…) citizens have no rights but responsibilities, and rights shift into social obligations” [23, page 100]. As Rose [49, page 230] observed, “individuals are to become, as it were, entrepreneurs of themselves, shaping their own lives through the choices they make among the forms of life available to them.” The recovery paradigm can be understood against this background, cultivating a project of self-development and self-improvement [47] and enabling societies to make “technologies of opportunity and self-government in the hopes of activating a vital, entrepreneurial and enterprising spirit among (their) subjects” operational [50, page 92].…”

“…The experience of people with mental health problems of not being recognized as citizens is frequently identified [21, 30–34] and refers to the discrepancy between their formal citizenship (embodied as an entitlement and a status) and their de facto citizenship (constructed through the experience of being a member of a particular community and society in practice) [46]. Lawy and Biesta [68, page 43] refer to a notion of citizenship articulated as relational and inclusive that does not presume that people move through a prespecified trajectory into their citizenship status/achievement as “good” and contributing citizens, yet “it is inclusive rather than exclusive because it assumes that everyone in society (…) are citizens who simply move through citizenship-as-practice, from the cradle to the grave.” Pols [69] introduced the concept of relational citizenship , which differs radically from normative citizenship, as it “develops in the relationship between people, embedded in a set of relational questions, interests and concerns” [23, page 103]. Winance [70] observes that, in practices of citizenship in which normalization processes are challenged from the position of an alignment to work on the norm, the societal norm gets problematized on a collective level.…”

“…In that vein, inclusive citizenship implies that “the main components of citizenship—membership and belonging, the rights and obligations that flow from that membership, and equality of status—(…) should all apply to all citizens equally” [71, page 4]. In this perspective, citizenship is shaped through relations where norms have to be renegotiated, performed, refreshed, and reestablished in each situation [23]. As such, rights and responsibilities are actualized and constantly renegotiated through (inter)actions in which contradiction and temporary consensus are vital elements [72].…”

Theorising Underlying Notions of Citizenship in the Dynamics of Learning in Public Policy Units

“…The vital question remains when, and how, these moments of interruption, which can perturb the arrangements in public policy units that have been taken for granted, are actually captured as political resistance against the existence of poverty and social inequality in our society. This suggests the necessity of a politicization of citizenship, that can take place in actual social practices that develop in the relationships between people, is embedded in a set of inter-relational questions and in a diversity and plurality of interests and concerns, and is actualized and constantly renegotiated through (inter)actions in which temporary lack of consensus is a vital element (Roose & De Bie, 2007;Roets et al, 2012). Anti-poverty politics thus require a reclaiming of collective politics and values such as solidarity, collective responsibility and interdependency (Lister, 2004).…”