The Foucault Effect

In this article, the authors critically examine themes that have become associated with work and retirement in the context of demographic change. Two discourses are looked at in detail, those of 'active' and 'productive' ageing, with a focus upon International and European social policy. Drawing on the work of Foucault and others, the emergence of a dominant discourse and its effects on policy-based understandings of ageing are examined. A new orthodoxy of ageing subjectivity is identified, restricting the social contribution of older adults to work and work-like activities. A subtext refers to the co-option of liberal gerontological priorities into new and socially rigid forms of identity that legitimize particular ways of growing old. The authors conclude that a radical re-positioning, inspired by mature identity, is required to rely less upon economically determined roles and more upon alternative grounding in existential life tasks and experience to give space for a 'mature subjectivity' and a desirable 'mature subject'.

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“…Governmentality is another concept from Foucault that has been developed further in the Anglo-Saxon world (Burchell et al, 1991;Donzelot, 2005).…”

Section: Governmentality In the Conduct Of Conducts And Of The Subjectmentioning

confidence: 99%

International and European policy on work and retirement: Reinventing critical perspectives on active ageing and mature subjectivity

2012

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“…Political philosophers have helped us understand the role of power in the construction, maintenance and deconstruction of knowledge, and they are also concerned with questions about 'whose knowledge?' and the political processes by which knowledge is created, confirmed or denied (Burchell et al 1991;Foucault 1991). Political ecologists build on political philosophy in the specific context of the environment to study the narratives of different knowledge systems about environmental change, examining how dominant knowledge systems reflect the power of dominant groups, potentially subverting the insights of marginalized people (Fairhead and Leach 1995;Batterbury et al 1997;Forsyth 2003;Dryzek 2005;Njaya et al 2012;Robbins 2012).…”

Section: Bridging Knowledge Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging knowledge systems to enhance governance of environmental commons: A typology of settings

2015

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Abstract:We offer a typology of settings to bridge scientific and indigenous knowledge systems and to enhance governance of the environmental commons in contexts of change. We contribute to a need for further clarity on how to incorporate diverse knowledge systems and in ways that contribute to planning, management, monitoring and assessment from local to global levels. We ask, what settings are discussed in the resource and environmental governance literature to support efforts to bridge indigenous and scientific knowledge systems? The objectives are: 1) to offer a typology that organizes various settings to bridge knowledge systems; and 2) to elaborate on how these settings function independently and in concert, using examples from a diverse literature in addition to field research experience. Our focus is on indigenous and scientific knowledge, but the typology offers lessons to bridge diverse knowledge systems more generally, and in ways that are sensitive to a moral, political and process-based approach. The typology includes specific methods and processes, brokering strategies, governance and institutional contexts, and the arena of epistemology. We describe each setting in the typology, and provide examples to reflect on the function and potential outcomes of different settings. Insights from our synthesis can inform policy and participatory action. 852Kaitlyn Joanne Rathwell et al. Keywords:Arctic, Environmental governance, indigenous knowledge, knowledge systems, multi-level governance, traditional knowledge Acknowledgements: We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript. Rathwell

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“…And this conclusion arises even when taking liberal national democracy on its own terms. More critical theories such as feminism and poststructuralism of course question the democratic credentials of the modern liberal state itself (Burchell et al, 1991;De Sousa Santos, 2007b;Pateman, 1988).…”

Section: Statism and Its Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reinventing global democracy

Scholte

2012

European Journal of International Relations

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How can democracy be suitably formulated in face of the more global character of contemporary society? Modern ideas and practices of 'people's rule' (whether in a statist or a cosmopolitan mode) fall short as frameworks for global democracy. Statist approaches to global democracy have a host of behavioural, institutional, historical and cultural problems. Modern cosmopolitan approaches do better in addressing contemporary social changes, but are deficient in terms of their globalist tendencies, often oversimplified notions of political identity, limited cultural reflexivity, usually tame responses to resource inequalities and anthropocentrism. To address these shortcomings one might explore an alternative of 'postmodern global democracies' built around principles of transscalarity, plural solidarities, transculturality, egalitarian distribution and more ecologically framed ideas of political rights and duties.

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The Foucault Effect

Cited by 1,909 publications

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International and European policy on work and retirement: Reinventing critical perspectives on active ageing and mature subjectivity

International and European policy on work and retirement: Reinventing critical perspectives on active ageing and mature subjectivity

Bridging knowledge systems to enhance governance of environmental commons: A typology of settings

Reinventing global democracy

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