WGS385H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Neoliberalism, Governmentality, Nuclear Family
28 Nov 2016
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Ne o lib e ra l go ve rn m e n ta lity. Idea that there is a rationality behind governing. Government and mentality: the conduct of conduct or how governing happens. Analytical framework used to think about who can govern, and the means by which individual"s activities are governed. Foucault asks how things happen - how power is exercised. Never gives solutions - breaks down problems - what are the results (rather than alternatives) Government is only one of many discursive fields within which the exercise of power is rationalized (other sites include church, school, family ) The political rationality that is employed in governmentally is never neutral knowledge. It has terms, boundaries and borders in relation to what is acceptable behaviour (it produces and guards truths, often through discipline) Government as a concept explodes in 16th c and by the 18th c comes to dominate the modern state.
