Rhetorical activation of workers: A case study in neo-liberal governance

Citation

Fejes A & Nicoll K (2012) Rhetorical activation of workers: A case study in neo-liberal governance. In: Hagar P, Lee A & Reich A (eds.) Practice, Learning and Change: Practice-Theory Perspectives on Professional Learning. Professional and Practice-based Learning, 8. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 167-181. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-4774-6_11

Abstract
In this chapter, we explore the effects of specific kinds of rhetorical work in the construction of new and more effective subjects within a contemporary neo-liberal regime of the provision of care. The chapter is inspired by the writings on techniques of governance in the later work of Michel Foucault (Security, territory, population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977-1978. Palgrave MacMillan, Houndmills, 2007), Mitchell Dean (Critical and effective histories: Foucault's methods and historical sociology. Routledge, London, 1994; Governmentality: power and rule in modern society. Sage, London, 1999) and Nikolas Rose (Powers of freedom: reframing political thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999). Drawing on data of language interactions between a manager and her workers at a nursing home for elderly people in Sweden, we explore a specific technique of invitation as it works to mobilize care workers in particular ways. This technique, we argue, is linked to a wider regime of care, within contemporary discourses of new public management and new managerialism, which seek to govern by shaping active entrepreneurial workers.