Are you a neoliberal subject? On the uses and abuses of a concept
| Autor: | Galen Watts |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Subjectivity
Sociology and Political Science media_common.quotation_subject 05 social sciences 0507 social and economic geography Neoliberalism Subject (philosophy) Scientific literature 16. Peace & justice 0506 political science Liberalism 050602 political science & public administration Sociology Positive economics 050703 geography media_common |
| Zdroj: | European Journal of Social Theory. 25:458-476 |
| ISSN: | 1461-7137 1368-4310 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/13684310211037205 |
| Popis: | A spate of social scientific literature gives the impression that societies in the twenty-first century are overrun with ‘neoliberal subjects’. But what does it actually mean to be a neoliberal subject? And in what ways does this concept relate to ‘neoliberalism’, more generally? In this article, I distinguish between four common ways of thinking about ‘neoliberalism’: (1) as a set of economic policies, (2) as a hegemonic ideological project, (3) as a political rationality and form of governmentality and (4) as a specific type of embodied subjectivity. I argue that while neoliberalisms (1), (2) and (3) potentially hold clear conceptual connections to one another – notwithstanding the quite real tensions between them – their relationship to neoliberalism (4) is often (although not always) tenuous at best. That is, the evidence routinely offered to demonstrate the existence of neoliberalism (4) bears almost no necessary relationship to neoliberalisms (1), (2) or (3). I conclude that, for both academic and political reasons, scholars should be more careful when invoking the monolithic notion of a ‘neoliberal subject’. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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