Transforming Subjectivities

Front matter

Routledge Studies in the Sociology of Work, Professions and Organisations

TRANSFORMING SUBJECTIVITIES

STUDIES IN HUMAN MALLEABILITY IN CONTEMPORARY TIMES

Contents

List of Contributors Preface

1 Introduction: Transforming Subjectivities CECILIA HANSEN LÖFSTRAND AND KERSTIN JACOBSSON

2 A Brighter Future? The Transformative Power of Models in Social Services LOVISA NASLUND AND RENITA THEDVALL

Index

Contributors

Marie Carlson is a Professor of Sociology (emeritus) at the University of Gothenburg.

Nanna Gillberg is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the University of Gothenburg.

Cecilia Hansen Löfstrand is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg.

Kerstin Jacobssonis a Professor of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg. Kirsi Juhila is a Professor of Social Work at Tampere University.

Johan Lindwall is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Gothenburg.

Lovisa Näslund is an Assistant Professor of Management at Stockholm University.

Jane Pettersson is a Doctor of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Bertil Rolandsson is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Gothenburg.

Jon Sunnerfjellis a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Gothenburg.

Renita Thedvall is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University.

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com

Preface

Some books are of more a pleasure to write than others. This book is one of those. The initial idea for an edited volume on Transforming Subjectivities was developed in a collegial discussion at a kick-off with staff at the Department of Sociology and Work Science at the University of Gothenburg some years ago. Thanks to all that participated in that discussion! A conceptual paper and a call for abstracts were then developed by us (editors), based on which the chapters of this volume took form. Working on this book has been a truly collaborative work and our names (as editors) are listed in alphabetical order.

We are grateful for the support of the Department of Sociology and Work Science in terms of providing a small grants covering some of the language editing costs, as well as the support of the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences/Riksbankens jubileumsfond (grant SGO14-1192), which enabled us to publish the book open access.

We hope that you will enjoy reading the chapters as much as we enjoyed writing them!

Cecilia Hansen Löfstrand and Kerstin Jacobsson Göteborg 2 May 2022

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com

1 Introduction Transforming Subjectivities

Our subjectivities—how we understand and feel about ourselves and the world around us—are the topic of much debate in popular as well as scientific discourses. Our time is characterized by a desire to be unique, while we are simultaneously all dependent on the vocabularies made available to us by contemporary discourses, by which we come to understand ourselves through our efforts to attain self-knowledge and self-improvement. Clearly, our subjectivity is not only a private matter, but also a target for intervention by authorities of all kinds. Contemporary societal trends such as the responsibilization and personalization of social and health care (e.g. Juhila et al. 2017), the medicalization and bio-medicalization of individual identities and self-understandings (e.g. Conrad 2007; Rose 2007) or the financialization of everyday life (e.g. Martin 2002; Clarke 2015) and the adherent regulatory and administrative practices target human subjectivity with the aim of transforming it. Without doubt, such trends mark our subjectivities, but to what extent and in what respects is human subjectivity malleable?

This volume addresses the complexity of human subjectivity formation in contemporary society in the light of current trends, with a particular focus on the transformation of subjectivities. The objective is to theorize processes of subject formation in contemporary times based on rich qualitative empirical material that enables a thorough analysis of the malleability of human subjectivity.

The argument is that the governmentality literature has produced an enormously inspiring and useful body of literature focusing on the how of governing (e.g. Rose 1989, 1999, 2007; Dean 2008); however, it has tended to overestimate the degree to which our subjectivities are open to change. Thus, the malleability of human subjectivity has been overestimated relative to such stabilizing forces as socialization or embodied habitus, and the relational production of (embodied) subjectivities (e.g., Butler 2005; cf. Rebughini 2014) been downplayed, we argue, because of relative inattention in the governmentality literature to the subjectivity formation of particular individuals in specific contexts. We especially recognize the limits of focusing solely on governing programmes and practices based primarily on document (textual) analyses, if the goal is to explore the transformation of subjectivities. Therefore, to see how governing attempts ‘land’ in the terrain at which they are targeted—human subjectivity—in actual social contexts, under specific forms of governing and rationality, we draw on insights from both governmentality perspectives and ethnographies of institutional discourses.

Transforming subjectivities is hence also the term for a conceptual framework for a particular type of empirically based analysis of how various attempts at governing subjects are received by governed subjects, for example, clients, patients or employees. Whether subjects are easily (reymoulded and how they adapt or resist are considered empirical questions that can be answered by an analysis of qualitative—and often, but not exclusively, ethnographic—empirical materials. We echo the call by some previous authors for more ethnographic sensitivity in governmentality analysis and more attention to the subjects of governing and the actual processes of subject formation (e.g. Li 2007; Brady 2014, 2016), but aim to add even more nuance and complexity to the processes by which our subjectivities are shaped, calibrated, re-formatted and complexified in contemporary ways of ‘governing the soul’ (cf. Rose 1989).

First, we aim to address not only efforts to transform subjectivities but also some of the outcomes and consequences. This presupposes a clearer focus on ‘before’ and ‘after’ than is common in governmentality analysis by capturing processes of subject and subjectivity formation.

Second, because much focus in the governmentality tradition has been on government technologies and their rationalities rather than on how they are actually received by individuals, this has resulted in a paradoxical tendency to remain inattentive to the subjective experiences of governing attempts. In this volume, we allow a focus on governing techniques and discourses to encounter the study of lived experience in specific social settings. Close investigations of possible gaps between categories and other discursive templates, as well as (alternative ways of accounting for) lived experience, we suggest, are a fruitful path in the study of human subjectivity. So far, there are few detailed and nuanced empirical studies of how subjectivities emerge in social settings that address the malleability of human subjectivity.

Third, this volume provides empirically rich, mostly ethnographic-based case studies from a variety of social settings, capturing not only the subjectivity formation and transformation of clients and patients but also those of professionals.

In summary, through theoretical cross-fertilization of governmentality perspectives and ethnographies of institutional discourses, it is hoped this book will inspire a second generation of governmentality studies.

In the following, we reiterate some insights that we gain from the two literatures: governmentality perspectives and ethnographies of institutional discourses.

Subjectivity as target of transformation: Governmentality studies

Self and subjectivity as a site of intervention and target for transformation have been prominent in the tradition of governmentality studies. The governmentality approach provides a set of analytical tools for understanding and examining the exercise of power as ‘the conduct of conduct’ (Burchell et al. 1991; e.g. Foucault 1982, 1997). Consequently, it focuses on the practices, technologies, rationalities and knowledge involved in shaping the conduct of others (e.g. Gordon 1991; Dean 2008; Rose 1999; Bréckling et al. 2011; Walters 2012). In focus are all endeavours to shape, guide and direct the conduct of others, including more or less rational schemes, programmes, techniques and devices intended to achieve certain ends (Rose 1999). An essential analytical assumption of the governmentality approach is that it is the efforts, rationalities and practices involved in shaping the conduct of others ‘that generate subjects in the first place’ (Bréckling et al. 2011: 13). In this process, only some images of the self are invoked, while other possible images are excluded.

The work of the late Foucault (e.g. Foucault 1982, 1996, 1997, 2005) is a source of great inspiration for governmentality scholars, who draw particularly on his insights on the distinction and interplay between ‘technologies of the self’ (self-governance) and technologies for governing others. Importantly, from this perspective, power operates not just by subjection (domination), but also through subjects, by subjectification, that is, through processes of self-formation and self-constitution (e.g. Foucault 1982, 1996, 2005). Hence, the important insight from Foucault is consequently the active participation of individuals in this process by self-formation and ‘work on the self’ (e.g. practices of introspection, self-knowledge, self-monitoring, self-fashioning, self-improvement). Foucault highlights the active participation of individuals when explaining that:

technologies of the self ... permit individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality.

As governmentality presupposes the active involvement of individuals, it acknowledges a certain degree of freedom, both on the side of those who aspire to govern and those individuals and collectives whose conduct is the target of that governance (Dean 2008; Walters 2012: 12). It represents a liberal approach to government. For Foucault, the concept of governmentality ‘implies the relationship of the self to the self’, and individuals are to some extent free to use a ‘whole range of practices’ and strategies in dealing with themselves and others (Foucault 1997: 300; see also 1982). However, individuals and collectives are guided "through their freedom”, that is, they are prompted to understand themselves as free subjects and (at the same time) to govern themselves (Bröckling et al. 2011: 13). Contemporary government operates delicately by infiltrating the ambitions of individuals, thus reaching "into the very interior of our existence and experience as subjects” (Rose 1989: 11).

Consequently and usefully, governmentality analysis is concerned with who we are (or think we are) when we are governed: that is, our mode of subjectification (Foucault 1982; Dean 2008: 17). Key here is the categories by which individuals understand themselves and the knowledge about human beings on which they are based. Categories are performative in that they contribute to constituting and framing self-understandings, expectations and further actions. Categories shape individuals, a process that Hacking (1986) referred to as "making up people”. It is in this sense that governmentality scholars speak of the creation or fabrication of subjects (e.g. Rose 2007: 110). Indeed, as Rose states: ‘My analysis concerns not what human beings are, but what they think they are: the kind of human beings that they take themselves to be’ (Rose 2007: 25).

In different times, places and settings, new configurations of knowledge, authority, technology and subjectivity emerge (Rose 2007: 104), providing new vocabularies through which individuals can understand and constitute themselves. For example, Rose has explored those in the ‘psy professions’ (e.g. psychology) and, more recently, neuroscience (Rose 2007) as ‘experts on subjectivity’, providing the knowledge by which people can understand themselves, thus contributing to the moulding of ‘therapeutical selves’ (Rose 1989) and now increasingly ‘neuro-chemical selves’ (Rose 2007). Government of the self in this context entails ‘managed desires to reform and remake ourselves through calculated intervention in the name of our authenticity, self-realization and freedom’ (Rose 2007: 105).

Researchers in this tradition commonly emphasize the how of governing (Foucault 1982; Rose 1989, 1999, 2007; Dean 2008). In practical terms, governmentality analysis typically involves an analysis of technologies and instruments (practices imbued with aspirations for the shaping of conduct), political rationalities (the programmatic character of tools to improve and maximize forces), and the discursive character of government: that is, knowledge, truth claims, conceptualizations, problem understandings and vocabularies, as well as work to shape our desires, aspirations, interests, beliefs and self-understanding (Rose 1999; see also Dean 2008; Walters 2012).

Governmentality-inspired studies have indeed shown that we are encouraged by ‘experts on subjectivity’ to regard our own and others’ subjectivity as open and, in our terms, malleable. Accordingly, taking a governmentality approach to the study of self and subjectivity entails the notion of subjectivity as open to change and being transformed. However, in effect, scholars inspired by governmentality have focused much more on governing techniques and considerably less on how efforts to shape the conduct of others have been received by subjects, than would perhaps be expected. For example, Rose (1999) presents the governmentality approach in the following manner:

To analyse political power through the analytics of governmentality is not to start from the apparently obvious historical and sociological question: What happened and why? It is to start by asking what authorities of various sorts wanted to happen, in relation to problems defined how, in pursuit of which objectives, through what strategies and techniques.

(1999: 20)

The focus of this approach is on governing practices rather than on the subjects of governing and their concerns. While Rose (1999: 21) recognizes both programmes and failures, acts as well as counter-acts, he seldom delves into the counter-acts or resistance. Similarly, Dean (2008) recognizes that the outcomes or effects of governing are ‘relatively unpredictable’ (11) and that the practices of the self are instruments in the pursuit of political, economic and social ends as well as means of resistance (2008: 13). Nevertheless, Dean (2008) chooses to focus on ‘practices concerned to conduct the conduct of others rather than those concerned to conduct one’s own conduct’ (13). Brockling et al. (2011) argue that the focus in governmentality studies ‘is on the interrelations between regimes of self-government and techniques of controlling and shaping the conduct of individuals and collectives, not on what human beings governed by these regimes and technologies actually say and do’ (13).

In this volume, however, we take a particular interest in the question of how resonant individuals are with governing practices and the aspirations of others by addressing the question of how mouldable subjects are in various contexts and settings. To that extent, we take the side of authors criticizing the lack of attention to the subjects of governing in the governmentality literature and studies. For instance, Newton (1998) called for taking the agency of subjects in relation to discourse seriously, as well as exploring its manifold implications (Newton 1998). The lack of attention to ‘actual people’ and the ‘actual processes’ of subject formation have been addressed by Brady (2014, 2016), who argued that ‘ethnographies of governmentalities’ can offer a finer-grained picture.! Similarly, anthropologist Tania Li (2007) called for a research agenda involving the ethnographic study of concrete governing attempts, whilst acknowledging individual and collective creativity. She argued:

The reluctance of scholars exploring governmental rationalities to conduct empirical studies of particular conjunctures introduces an odd inconsistency in their work: an interest in politics as a hypothetical possibility that is not carried into an interest in politics as a concrete practice. Nikolas Rose, for example, argues for the study of governmental rationalities and against what he calls sociologies of rule — studies of the ways in which rule is actually accomplished, and the messy and often unintended outcomes of governmental programs as they are applied in practice.

(Li 2007: 279, italics added)

We argue that governmentality research has tended to overestimate the malleability of human subjectivity precisely because of this inattention to how governing techniques play out in authentic settings, including the subjectivity formation of actual individuals. This approach entails recognizing the limits that a sole focus on governing programmes and practices based primarily on document (textual) analyses brings when the goal is to explore the transformation of subjectivity.

In fact, as Rose (1999) has argued, existing governmentality studies show that spaces of government are shaped not by one but by several discourses (22), so subjects are always shaped and intersected by several discourses. Such competing modes of subjectification may open a space for resisting subject positions encouraged by authorities of various kinds. Moreover, different individuals may respond quite differently and to varying degrees be prone to accepting the subject positions and subjectivity ideals offered to them (e.g. Sunnerfjell & Jacobsson 2018). To see how governing attempts ‘land’ in the terrain at which they are targeted—human subjectivity—in specific social contexts, under specific forms of governing, it is useful to combine insights from governmentality perspectives with ethnographies of institutional discourses (e.g. Gubrium & Holstein 2001, 2008).

The study of adapting and resisting selves in social settings: Ethnographies of institutional discourse

Ethnographies of institutional discourse is an analytical framework enabling ethnographers, or more broadly, qualitatively oriented social scientists conducting field research and interviews, to consider discursive and narrative aspects of lived experience as accounted for in a variety of specific settings. It starts from the notion of talk being ‘inextricably intertwined’ with social settings (Miller 1994: 280) and combines observations of everyday life with detailed analyses of naturally occurring conversations and the study of knowledge production in social settings. Institutional discourses are the ‘fundamental assumptions, concerns and vocabularies of members of settings and their usual ways of interacting with each other’ (Miller 1994: 282-283). As such, institutional discourses are ‘shared and standardized frameworks for anticipating, acting in and reflecting on social settings and interactions’ (Miller 1994: 283). Taken together, social settings and institutional discourses are ‘conditions of possibility for reality construction’ (Miller 1994: 283) or conditions of possibility for the creation and re-creation of subjectivity.

The term ‘institution’ refers to conventions or types of social practices associated with a setting, observable through the recurring activities of its members by which social settings, relationships and (inter-)subjective realities are constructed and reproduced (Miller 1994: 287). Institutions are observable ‘situated conventions’ that ethnographers, for example, take as signs of abstract structures or formal organization (Miller 1994: 288). Ways of talking, writing and interacting in a social setting depend on setting specific practical and interpretative conventions that have their own logic (Miller 1994: 293).

In social settings, power is exercised and dominance achieved by producing ‘discursive dominance’, that is, by making some ways of talking and interacting available and other ways of assessing or orienting people towards each other seen inappropriate or undesirable. Therefore, setting members—such as employers and employees or professional helpers and clients—may resist more or less overt demands that they act responsibly and appropriately by acting in ways perceived to be ‘uncooperative, defiant or in other ways inappropriate’ (Miller 1994: 284). Setting members who resist dominant discourses also draw on resources available in the setting. Therefore, an act of resistance cannot ‘be separated from the discursive contexts within which it is produced’, and authorities in settings may respond to resistance in ways that still ‘sustain organizationally preferred positions, relationships and realities’ (Miller 1994: 284). In every social setting, there is a hierarchy of institutional discourses (Miller 1994: 299), which does not necessarily mean that the dominant discourse is hegemonic. As qualitative social scientists or ethnographers, we must look for gaps, discontinuities and contradictions that may be signs of alternative or subjugated discourses (Miller 1994: 300) drawn on by subjects of government to express resistance. In different times, places and settings, under certain conditions, alternative discourses are taken seriously by setting members.

The important insight we take from ethnographies of institutional discourse is that subjective senses of self always ‘reflect the circumstances under which self-interpretation takes place’, meaning that ‘culturally endorsed formats’ are drawn on in self-formation processes (Gubrium & Holstein 2001: 9). However, arguably ‘the self emanates from the interplay between circumstantial demands, restraints, and resources, on one hand, and self-constituting social actions on the other’ (Gubrium & Holstein 2001: 9). Letting this approach cross-fertilize the governmentality approach allows us to see how enactments of institutional discourses and the production of knowledge, power and resistance play out in particular settings, when— importantly—they encounter the lived experience of individuals and collectives. This approach, it is argued, helps to ‘complicate’ and add nuance to the ways in which our subjectivities are calibrated, re-formatted and complexified in specific settings under specific knowledge regimes and contemporary ways of governing our ‘selves’.

We share the view that lived experience and subjectivity are inextricably linked (Biehl et al. 2007). In different social settings, subjectivities emerge and transform through collective and individual experiences. As shown by Terkelsen (2009), subjects are not passively formed or produced as such, but reproduce and change themselves in social settings and in and through social interactions (Biehl et al. 2007; Terkelsen 2009). Experience and subjectivity are both intersubjective phenomena: that is, subjective and collective processes fuse and condition each other (Kleinman & Fitz-Henry 2007; Terkelsen 2009).

As illustrated by the chapters in this book, studies of lived experience in social settings, enactments of institutional discourses and the production of knowledge, power and resistance in social settings reflect how subjectivities are shaped and transformed (or possibly not). As pointed out by Terkelsen (2009), a focus on everyday subjective experience in specific settings reveals ‘how subjectivities emerge, are shaped and reshaped through a flow of multiple, diverse and sometimes paradoxical everyday experiences’ (4). Nevertheless, there are few detailed and nuanced studies of how subjectivities emerge in social settings, addressing empirically the malleability of human subjectivity.

Thus, experiences, as known through the stories we tell about ourselves (to ourselves and to others), are shaped by environments or social settings. Gubrium and Holstein (2008: 251) therefore suggest a narrative ethnography approach. To understand the meaning of stories, one must explore not only the content and internal logic of the narrative itself, but also the varied circumstances under which stories are told, that is, ‘the circumstances of their production and reception’ or their ‘narrative environments’ (Gubrium & Holstein 2008: 252). In line with this approach, studying transformations of subjectivity in everyday settings means analysing ‘the narrative practices of those whose experiences and lives are under consideration’ to understand both the meaning of their stories and ‘the relation of [their] stories to the worlds in which they circulate’ (Gubrium & Holstein 2008: 252). Social settings function as narrative environments, and each social setting ‘affirms certain established stories and ways of narrating experience’, and in that sense ‘privilege particular accounts for institutional purposes’, whereas counter narratives tend to become ‘marginalized, “repaired,” or otherwise challenged’ (Gubrium & Holstein 2008: 253).

For example, Loseke shows how culturally standardized images of battered women shape the institutional thinking, interaction and processes of assessment at a shelter for battered women (Miller 1994: 293). Loseke (2001) uses the concept of ‘formula stories’, defined as ‘templates for how lived experience may be defined’ that people tend to use ‘to make sense of their lives and experiences’ (107). However, formula stories honour ‘only some types of experiences’ (Loseke 2001: 121) and lived experience ‘has a way of resisting formulaic presentations’ (Loseke 2001: 108). Close investigations of possible gaps between categories provided by formula stories, other discursive templates and (alternative ways of accounting for) lived experience may be a fruitful path in the study of human subjectivity if one takes an interest in the malleability of human subjectivity, as we do in this book.

Introduction 9 Introduction to the volume

We share with the governmentality approach the analytical assumption that power operates not just by subjection (as domination), but also through subjects, by subjectification and through processes of self-formation and self-constitution (e.g. Foucault 1982, 1996, 2005). We also share the assumption that it is the efforts, rationalities and practices involved in the shaping of the conduct of others "that generate subjects in the first place” (Bröckling et al. 2011: 13). This is a process in which some images of the self are invoked, while other possible images of the self are excluded. However, we keep in mind that while the subjective sense of self is shaped by the conduct of others and in that sense always "reflect the circumstances under which self-interpretation takes place’, it always simultaneously relies on the ‘self-constituting social actions’ of the subjects themselves (Gubrium & Holstein 2001: 9). This book takes a particular interest in the question of how resonant we really are with the governing practices and the aspirations of others; indeed, how mouldable are we as subjects? The chapter in this book consequently focuses more on and theorizes about the processes of subject- and subjectivity-formation as they unfold in specific social and organizational settings, also discussing some of the outcomes of these processes. Whether subjects are easily ‘(reymoulded’ or not, and how they adapt or offer resistance are considered empirical questions that can be answered by an analysis of qualitative—and often, but not exclusively, ethnographic—empirical materials.

Chapter outline

In Chapter 2, A Brighter Future? The Transformative Power of Models in Social Services, Lovisa Naslund and Renita Thedvall focus on the effect on social workers of models used in social work practice, as the workers use them to transform their clients. From a governance perspective, human dispositions are manageable potentialities, so models have the capacity to transform subjectivities through their potential to control the mindset or mentality of social workers and clients. Through an ethnographic study, the authors explore how the Globe model, intended to be a roadmap to client self-sufficiency, was developed and used, as well as how and to what extent it shaped the social workers’ self-understandings and work practices. The authors show that the Globe model initially sparked hope and reduced stress among social workers by making their workload seem more manageable, but over time it evolved into a tool to increase their efficiency and client progress, thus becoming a tool to control the social workers’ ‘output’. The authors conclude that models function to some extent as technologies of governmentality and transform the subjectivities of those subjected to them. However, their nuanced studies of specific work practices reveal that human subjectivities are less malleable than one may perhaps assume.

In Chapter 3, Shaping Caseworker Subjectivity in Social Insurance Agencies, Kerstin Jacobsson investigates the role of organizational narratives and storytelling in shaping caseworker subjectivities by ‘storying’ their experience and signalling appropriate ways of being a caseworker. In her ethnographic study of narrative occasions such as staff and teamwork meetings, in combination with individual caseworker interviews, Jacobsson shows that organizational narratives are key in the process of shaping caseworker subjectivities. The political goals, Directors General and internal management styles of Swedish Social Insurance Agencies have shifted dramatically, with each shift accompanied by shifts in legitimizing narratives, including the need to confess to past bad practices. Jacobsson analyses in detail the collective and interactional processes involved in the storying of individual experience and, thus, in shaping caseworker subjectivities. Narratives not only shape organizational priorities and ways of relating to clients and case management but also what caseworkers felt to be satisfying and rewarding at work, and the self-improvement sought at work. The author concludes that empirically and theoretically, it is in the interplay between organizational narratives (including accompanying discursive templates of a caseworker) and individual experience that subjectivities—the caseworkers’ views of themselves and the world—are produced. However, the fact that the caseworker subjectivities were found to be malleable does not mean they are completely fabricated by the will of others. As also noted in Chapter 2, more experienced caseworkers showed greater ambivalence in relation to new managerial trends.

In Chapter 4, Swedish Police Reform and the Emergence of New Police Subjectivities, Bertil Rolandsson points out that as public officials, police officers must govern themselves in relation not only to managerial rationalities but also to the public they serve. Swedish Police Reform was intended to improve the Swedish Police Authority’s ability to respond to the needs expressed by local communities and move the police closer to the citizens. Based on individual interviews with police officers several years after the reform, Rolandsson explores how the new toolbox for this purpose, intended to make the police authority more sensitive to local problems, functions in practice. He illustrates local police officers’ creativity and concerns in relation to local collaboration with other public authorities and citizens, including officers’ feelings in response to others’ expectations, and highlights variations in their self-conceptions as strategizing subjects. Rolandsson shows that police officers with extensive and event-driven workloads needed to take local concerns seriously while avoiding promising the general public too much. The reform and its accompanying managerial tools, in a sense, thus fostered more apprehensive or even anxious police subjects. Thus, a new and strategic police subjectivity emerged. Officers’ own approaches to feelings of anxiety differed, and the author identifies cynical and more pragmatic police subjects; however, both groups were concerned about the possibility of ‘failing’ in the eyes of citizens.

In Chapter 5, Negotiating Subjectivities in Social Work Dialogues, Johan Lindwall discusses changes in social work practices, the move from past authoritarian tendencies to current ideals of client-centredness and dialogue. In this change, the will of the client becomes the primary intervention site. However, Lindwall indicates, state-sanctioned social work always entails a mission to discourage certain behaviours by clients. The main dilemma of social workers in contemporary times thus concerns adjusting their clients to the institutional rationality without subjection (domination). Instead, subjectification, or work that aligns with clients’ subjectivities and their will, has become the new ideal. Lindwall draws on a larger ethnographic study, including recorded dialogues between workers and clients they categorize as having substance use problems. The chapter describes a confessional discourse; clients ideally confess to substance use problems. Lindwall sheds light on the power dimensions in social work based on ideals of dialogues between ‘equals’. He finds that these dialogues are highly controlling through the use of subtle, highly elusive means of shaping client subjectivities by targeting their desires and aspirations. Furthermore, he shows that dialogue-based social work results in negotiations of both client and social worker subjectivities. Nevertheless, there are limits to the malleability of clients, who resisted characterizations of themselves. While social workers aspired to idealized facilitator subjectivity, they also sometimes resisted it by applying more authoritarian means of control. Hence, while both client and social worker subjectivities are malleable, there are limits.

In Chapter 6, Subjectification, Advice Giving and Resistance in Mental Health Home Visit Interaction, Kirsi Juhila and Cecilia Hansen Löfstrand depart from the deinstitutionalization of mental health care as a pervasive policy trend in the global North. Deinstitutionalization has entailed changes in professional care delivery systems, from care in large treatment institutions to community care and—more recently—to professional care provision in the homes of clients and patients. Juhila and Hansen Löfstrand explore new technologies for governing the conduct of clients in their homes by home visits, focusing on worker—client interactions and dialogues. In the context of mental health care and support work, home visits target clients’ subjectivity and operate through subjectification, that is, through clients’ own processes of self-constitution and self-formation. The chapter demonstrates how subjectification is initiated and attempts are made to strengthen the self-governance of clients in institutionally preferred manners during home visits. Drawing on ethnographic data from worker—client dialogues during home visits to clients, the authors focus on workers’ advice-giving and client responses, including resistance to investigate what subject positions are encouraged and whether they are accepted or resisted, and consequently how resonant and malleable clients are, to governance by mental health care and support workers. The authors found that clients occasionally accepted advice and strengthened their self-governance as suggested, but clients also demonstrated resistance in several ways. They asserted their own knowledge of norms, that is, their competence and self-knowledge, agreeing with the workers” recommended course of action but disagreeing about how to achieve it. In instances of overt resistance, the clients questioned the relevance of the recommendations. The authors conclude that advice-giving and responses, including resistance, are integral to subjectification processes. While self-knowledgeable subjects are produced in the process, the institutionally preferred self-governance of mental health care clients may not always be achieved.