Center for Development Studies (DVLP)

Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire Démocratie, Institutions, Subjectivité (CRIDIS)

CALL FOR PAPERS

THE PRODUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY UNDER NEO-LIBERAL

GOVERNANCE

LA PRODUCTION DES SUBJECTIVITÉS EN CONTEXTE DE GOUVERNANCE

NÉOLIBÉRALE

Ph.D Seminar - Université Catholique de Louvain

April 14 and 15, 2016

Neoliberal governance and its structures, and dispositifs, are at the core of contemporary debates

in the human sciences. David Harvey (2006) considers neoliberalism a theory that places

individual freedom as the final goal of all civilisations. Private property rights, free markets and

liberal democracy are the means through which individual freedom is best protected and society

flourishes, according to neo-liberal views. The primary role of the state is to enforce property

rights, while market forces govern the economy. Neo-liberal ideas have shaped global and

national policy for over three decades, introducing the primacy of private property and market

rationality in all range of public life from education to healthcare, from land governance to

environmental protection. Workers' rights in the global North as well as in the South are

devalued in favour of individual responsibility. In agricultural dependent countries, the rural poor

find themselves struggling with the commodification of land and of the larger environment.

Because of their pervasiveness in social life, neo-liberal ideas shape institutions as well as

individuals. If the production of subjectivity is also the result of social relations, then what

kinds of subjectivities does neo-liberalism produce? How do individual and collective

subjects participate or challenge neo-liberal governance, and what forms of social identities

does this engagement engender? Through the effort of asking this question, the seminar aims to

stimulate a debate on the structures of neo-liberalism and its implementing devices while

analyzing patterns of struggle and adherence, and the subjectivities they produce in the global

North as well as in the South.

The seminar will cross three thematic areas:

1) INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY AND MIGRATION

This panel aims at exploring the kind of subjectivities that new laws, borders, discourses

and practices of mobility produce. Globalization and the acceleration of economic

exchange have deeply affected the movement of humans, and pose new sets of challenges

to migrants, citizens and activists. In the global North, the mobility of poor migrant

workers is tightly regulated and often punished, while the mobility of the citizens of the

union is often actively promoted through a series of devices, such as student exchange

programs and international traineeships (both low and high pay). Neo-liberal governance

also touches migration in other ways, as the opening of borders to capital facilitates the

circulation of subjects inserted in international dynamics of exchange though different

forms of mobility and circulation.

2) ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

This panel explores the production of subjectivities and collective identities engendered

by people's interaction with the commodification of land, natural resources, and the

management of agricultural and natural landscapes. In the wake of a global climate crisis,

the neo-liberal response to the environmental change has so far further expanded the

processes of commodification. From the rise of the global market for carbon credits to the

patenting of vegetal life, from market-oriented land reform to the liberalization of

primary commodity markets, neo-liberal capitalism has changed the way global nature is

conceived and socially produced (Moore 2015). As a consequence, neo-liberalism has

informed the work of small producers around the globe, and it has radically changed the

way humans interact with the rest of nature.

3) WELFARE, GOVERNANCE AND SERVICE DELIVERY

The panel explores the interactions between the production of individual, collective and

political subjectivities with neoliberal policies pushing for good governance, transparency

and participatory agendas. Although the state seems to be making a timid resurgence as

social movements challenge free-market ideology, neo-liberal policies have globally

shaped the face of the state machinery. Policy makers and international agencies such as

the World Bank and the IMF have long argued for state reform, decentralization,

transparency and liberal democracy. At the same time, the delivery of public goods is

seen at its best when in the hands of private actors or managed through 'participatory'

mechanisms relying on civil society actors. However, scholarly critics have long debated

the neoliberal governance vocabulary, questioning issues of democracy and participation

and hiding relations of power and inequality in local contexts (Petras 1999).

PARTICIPATION

The seminar is open to doctoral students and junior researchers in the social sciences.

Participants will be asked to discuss their topic during a 20 minute presentation.

Applicants should fill in the following form (including a 300 words abstract) and send in PDF

format to cecile.giraud@uclouvain.be by the 5/03/2016. Authors will be communicated the

acceptance of their abstract by the 15/03/2016. The seminar will be held in English and French.

The scientific committee encourages participants to circulate full draft articles of their

presentation for possible publication purposes. For further info please visit:

neoliberalsubjectivity.wordpress.com

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

An Ansoms – UCL/DVLP

Matthieu de Nanteuil – UCL/CRIDIS

Giuseppe Cioffo – UCL/DVLP

Aymar Nyenyezi – UCL/DVLP

Cécile Giraud – UCL/DVLP

THE PRODUCTION OF SUBJECTIVITY UNDER NEO-LIBERAL GOVERNANCE

LA PRODUCTION DES SUBJECTIVITÉS EN CONTEXTE DE GOUVERNANCE

NÉOLIBÉRALE

Ph.D Seminar - Université Catholique de Louvain

April 14 and 15, 2016

Application can be written either in French or in English.

Name/Prénom :

Surname/ Nom :

Email :

Affiliation :

Please indicate the thematic area of your presentation/ Indiquez l’axe thématique de la

communication

Abstract title/ Titre du résumé:

Abstract / Résumé (max 300 words) :