The aim of this dissertation is to review the molding process of the politics that preceeded the work for gender equality which inSwedengathered speed in the early 1970s. Particular focus has been put to how society through legislation, economic and social privileges during the years 1921-1971 affected Swedish women’s possibilities to make a living and to achieve economic independence. In the dissertation three commissions initiated by the government have been analysed, all of which have been considered paramount for Swedish women’s economic emancipation. The stance that has been applied presumes that the way in which a “problem” has been formulated and framed is of importance for which measures will obtain interpretative preference, thus having an influence on both legislation and the politics pursued, and which measures were considered inconceivable. The dissertation demonstrates that different interpretations of the problems, based on disparate values and indisputable suppositions of how women as regards economic issues should be, choose and act, to varying degree and effect converged in the reports presented by the commissions. In the politics applied women were then manouvered into another economic practice than men, but also into different activities for different groups of women.   One of the main arguments in this dissertation is that in spite of the fact that parts of the women’s liberation movement were active in this molding process during the years 1921-1971, it was not the result of liberal and women-friendly politics. Change over time was pushed by governmentality. By, in the commissions analysed, problematising how certain women’s behaviour contributed to major social problems, such as a dropping marriage frequency, decreasing nativity and preventing economy from expanding, the rights and other social benefits would steer them into serving what was regarded as the public good. Thus, during the time period reviwed, Swedish women´s extended rights and other social benefits were not implemented to create possibilities for women to achieve economic independence, but as a means to resolve other superior social problems.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

本論文從傅柯(M. Foucault)的生命政治(biopolitics)觀點，指出口服墮胎藥物RU486之治理體系建構，如何延續了台灣近代從家庭計畫、《優生保健法》立法以來的生命政治(biopolitics)脈絡，卻又因台灣1990年代民主化政治的發展，而不以過去集權政治的方式，反而透過社會行動者之間的互動與角逐形塑而成。台灣近代的人口治理自家庭計畫至《優生保健法》立法時期，執政當局都是秉持著同樣的整體人口治理觀，傳播人口控制與經濟發展扣連的論述，使治理體系越加周延與激進徹底。到了RU486時期，集權的治理已不在，但在對人口進行整體調節，與對肉體進行個體規訓的生命權力(bio-power)論述，仍滲透在行動者的論述中，不斷地擴散與再製，並使得人民被形塑出治理性(governmentality)。RU486治理體系中的臨床規訓實作，即使仍有模糊、不合法的使用不斷地挑戰治理體系的界線，但又透過生命政治體系來回不斷的建構而逐漸被收編至體系內，成為體系的一環。在RU486合法化過程積極參與的女權團體，其興起與集權政治的退場密不可分，同樣積極參與的醫生團體則是透過不斷地與執政當局合作，而發展出其專業自主權，而成為產科領域的唯一專業代言人。RU486因此做為一種整體人口治理的人工流產技術物，其體系之形塑卻因不同社會行動者的積極介入，而在整體調節之餘也部份地彰顯了行動者的自主性，形成了與家庭計畫、《優生保健法》時期的節育與墮胎技術不同的屬性。 / From Michel Foucault’s perspectives on biopolitics, this article explains how the construction of governance system of abortion pill RU486 path-depends on the biopolitics contexts of the family planning and Genetic Health Act. Due to the political democratization during the 1990s in Taiwan, this construction is not shaped by the authority before, but through the interaction and competition of social actors. In Taiwan, the population governance from the family planning to Genetic Health Act in recent years keeps the same population control values, diffusing discourses about the connection of population control and economic developments, and then makes the whole governance system more integral and radical. To the period of RU486 legalization there is no more authority, but bio-power discourses upon overall regulation of population and individual disciplinary of body still infiltrate into the discourse of actors, shaping the governmentality of people. The clinical practices of RU486, though the fuzzy, illegal practices of RU486 still challenge the boundary of governance, are incorporated in a part of the system through the dynamic construction of biopolitics. The rise of feminist organizations that deeply participate in the process of RU486 legalization, is a result of disappearance of authority. Doctor groups, which also participate in the process of RU486 legalization, rise and develop their professional autonomy through the continuous cooperation with the government, becoming the only spokesperson of Obstetrics. We could say that RU486 is a kind of abortion artifact for population governance; apart from the overall regulation in the process of shaping RU486’s governance system, the actors’ autonomy is manifest. As a result, RU486 obtains a different property with the contraception and abortion technologies in the periods of the family planning and Genetic Health Act.

Citizens of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation fight for justice with their bodies at the frontlines of environmental catastrophe. This dissertation employs a biopolitical and interpretive analysis to examine these struggles in the polluted heart of Canada’s ‘Chemical Valley’. Drawing from a discursive analysis of situated concerns on the ground and a textual analysis of Canada’s biopolitical ‘policy ensemble’ for Indigenous citizenship, this dissertation examines how citizens and public officials respond to environmental and reproductive injustices in Aamjiwnaang. Based upon in-depth interviews with residents and policy-makers, I first document citizens of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation’s activities and practices on the ground as they cope with and navigate their health concerns and habitat. Second, I examine struggles over knowledge and the contestation over scientific expertise as the community seeks reproductive justice. Third, I contextualize citizen struggles over knowledge by discussing the power relations embedded within the ‘policy ensemble’ for Indigenous citizenship and Canadian jurisdiction for on-reserve environmental health. From an interpretive lens, inspired by Foucault’s concepts of biopower and governmentality, the dissertation develops a framework of “ecological citizenship”, which confronts biopolitics with a theoretical discussion of place to expand upon existing Canadian citizenship and environmental studies literature. I argue that reproductive justice in Aamjiwnaang cannot be separated from environmental justice, and that the concept of place is central to ongoing struggles. As such, I discuss “ecological citizenship’s double-edge”, to contend that citizens are at once bound up within disciplinary biopolitical power relations and also articulate a radical form of place-based belonging.

My reading of the figure of Adele, a woman with dementia, in David Chariandy’s novel Soucouyant: A Novel of Forgetting (2007), brings Giorgio Agamben’s biopolitical concept of “bare life” together with the notion of the subject in diaspora to theorize a new mentality that I call “bare mind.” The notion of “bare mind” addresses how cognitive imperialism creates a biopolitical state of exception both under forms of sovereign power and within a liberal regime of multicultural governmentality, while acknowledging the ways in which dementia, portrayed as the ‘forgetting’ of dominant knowledge regimes, reveals resistance to cognitive imperialism. / Graduate / 0352 / rebekah.ludolph@gmail.com

This dissertation examines three contemporary German novels and their respective representations of the Red-Green era. It focuses on the discourses to which these novels refer in order to shed light on the consequences and implications of Red-Green politics for the subjectification of individuals during this time. When Gerhard Schröder replaced Helmut Kohl in 1998 as Chancellor of Germany, there was a noticeable shift towards neoliberal policies that has since received much attention in scholarly studies and public-political debates about its impact on Germany’s economy, social security system, political party system, and institutional structure. Taking a new approach to understanding the politics of the Red-Green coalition, I argue that its impact is noticeable not only in the political sphere, but that this impact also permeates all levels of society, in particular concepts of selfhood, and that it has found its way into contemporary literary works. As my particular interest lies in investigating how these literary works process the consequences and implications of Red-Green politics for the subjectification of individuals during this time, the novels I selected situate themselves explicitly within the Red-Green era mostly through references to some of its most well-known labour market measures, namely the Ich-AG, the Mittelstandsoffensive, and employability training programs. Analysing the neoliberal discourses to which these novels refer and (re-) constructing the particular sets of knowledge, truths, and norms that enable neoliberal governing practices allow me to shed light on the mechanisms of individuals’ subjectification through the politics of the Red-Green coalition. Of particular importance during the Red-Green era are the discourses surrounding entrepreneurialism as they construct the market as a structuring principle of society in which all individuals are called upon as entrepreneurs. For the examination of neoliberal governing discourses, I draw both on Michel Foucault’s theory of neoliberal governmentality and Ulrich Bröckling’s conceptualization of the entrepreneurial self, an idealized and hence unachievable self-image that addresses individuals as entrepreneurs of their own lives. Foucault’s theory allows going beyond an understanding of neoliberalism as a political theory of free market policies but views it as an act of governing that expands the notion of the government of others to include the government of the self according to the principles of entrepreneurialism and the market, hence taking into account the participatory role of the subject. Bröckling’s conceptualization draws on Foucault’s theory to examine the subjectification of individuals as entrepreneurial selves, that is, as individuals who are constantly stimulated to act as enterprising subjects. The literary analysis of the novels – Ralph Hammerthaler’s Alles bestens (2002), Reinhard Liebermann’s Das Ende des Kanzlers. Der finale Rettungsschuss (2004), and Joachim Zelter’s Schule der Arbeitslosen (2006) – shows they cast light on various ways in which specific forms of subjectivity are promoted and enabled through neoliberal governing practices. More specifically, I illustrate that the protagonists in each novel represent three different facets of the entrepreneurial self, namely the enthusiast, the melancholic, and the social lemming that Ulrich Bröckling identifies in his typology of the entrepreneurial self (2008). While the nameless protagonist in Alles bestens embraces the market as a universal structuring principle and a metaphor for his own life, the protagonist Hans Hansmann in Das Ende des Kanzlers embraces free market principles, yet fails to fully understand the demands of the market and his own position within it. By contrast, Karla Meier in Schule der Arbeitslosen refuses to accept yet nevertheless follows the demands implicit in the image of the entrepreneurial self.

This thesis presents an analysis of adult education programs concerned with reconciliation, and more specifically with reconciliation pedagogy used by community organisations in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland for many years was the site of inter-ethnic violence expressed through sectarian and paramilitary presence, but has moved towards a more peaceful, civil society in recent years. This thesis investigates how the role of the citizen-subject in the new Northern Ireland is constituted in adult education programs and how funding regimes govern such community relations initiatives. The thesis offers a critical analysis of interviews with tutors, participants, designers and managers involved in a selected peace and reconciliation course. A broader view on reconciliation pedagogy and curriculum in anti-sectarian adult education in Northern Ireland leads to a closer exploration of social practices and power relations surrounding the chosen course, while drawing upon selected aspects of social theory, Foucauldian discourse analysis and concepts of governmentality. The analysis revealed that the chosen anti-sectarian course, ‘Us and Them’ (Workers Educational Association), proposes individualisation and responsibilisation as alternatives to community identities and nationalistic myths of origins. Equal rights are interpreted as equal rights to cultural expressions, and culture is continuously privileged over other structural differentials in Northern Ireland such as poverty, class or colour. ‘Us and Them’ is one component of a large machinery of projects designed to address the conflict situation in Northern Ireland. This machinery finds its centre in the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council, which privileges certain knowledges based on cultural consociationalism over others and which distributes funds for peace and reconciliation projects accordingly. Furthermore,the thesis examines how contemporary policy papers addressing community relations shape discourses found in anti-sectarian strategies and the rationales, strategies and policies informing “Us and Them’. The aim of the analysis is to explore the power and potential (and the limitations) of individualisation and responsibilisation as techniques in peace and reconciliation pedagogy in post-settlement ethnic conflict situations.

Housing, while a necessity of ???life???, goes beyond this definition in this research to also become a technology of government in the domestic distributional geopolitics of nation-states. Employing a Foucaultian approach to power and governance, this research examines how the provision of housing assistance was used in the government of rural public housing communities. Data for this research were collected through a series of archival resources that focused specifically on the transitional periods of 1935-1955 and 1985-2005. Data were also gathered through a questionnaire and interviews with public housing tenants and staff from four towns (Griffith, Cootamundra, Junee and Tumut) in the ???Riverina??? region of south-western New South Wales (NSW), Australia. This research makes five contributions to geographical understandings of distributional politics. First, the thesis contends that poststructuralist theoretical approaches to the analysis of power and governance enable innovative critical engagements with the distributional geopolitical agendas of governmental processes. The research also found that the distributional geopolitical agendas of Governments have been pursued through more than just the redistribution of fiscal resources, but also include the redistribution of human resources. In particular, housing assistance has been, and is used today, to perpetuate certain internal migration patterns to aid this human-distributional agenda. Third, the study argues that ??? while the broad shift to advanced liberal forms of government have resulted in changes to how distributional geopolitical agendas are pursued ??? ???distribution??? remains an integral feature of the geopolitical objectives of those who seek to govern in advanced liberal ways. This work also shows how these new advanced liberal distributional objectives remain open to being problematised and/or resisted at the local scale. However, while such governmental processes are always uncertain and open to contestation, these changes have brought about a new set of ethical and political consequences. We need to be alert to and critical of the ways in which these new distributional geopolitical agendas impact on our own and others??? ???freedoms???.

This thesis presents an analysis of adult education programs concerned with reconciliation, and more specifically with reconciliation pedagogy used by community organisations in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland for many years was the site of inter-ethnic violence expressed through sectarian and paramilitary presence, but has moved towards a more peaceful, civil society in recent years. This thesis investigates how the role of the citizen-subject in the new Northern Ireland is constituted in adult education programs and how funding regimes govern such community relations initiatives. The thesis offers a critical analysis of interviews with tutors, participants, designers and managers involved in a selected peace and reconciliation course. A broader view on reconciliation pedagogy and curriculum in anti-sectarian adult education in Northern Ireland leads to a closer exploration of social practices and power relations surrounding the chosen course, while drawing upon selected aspects of social theory, Foucauldian discourse analysis and concepts of governmentality. The analysis revealed that the chosen anti-sectarian course, ‘Us and Them’ (Workers Educational Association), proposes individualisation and responsibilisation as alternatives to community identities and nationalistic myths of origins. Equal rights are interpreted as equal rights to cultural expressions, and culture is continuously privileged over other structural differentials in Northern Ireland such as poverty, class or colour. ‘Us and Them’ is one component of a large machinery of projects designed to address the conflict situation in Northern Ireland. This machinery finds its centre in the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council, which privileges certain knowledges based on cultural consociationalism over others and which distributes funds for peace and reconciliation projects accordingly. Furthermore,the thesis examines how contemporary policy papers addressing community relations shape discourses found in anti-sectarian strategies and the rationales, strategies and policies informing “Us and Them’. The aim of the analysis is to explore the power and potential (and the limitations) of individualisation and responsibilisation as techniques in peace and reconciliation pedagogy in post-settlement ethnic conflict situations.

O presente trabalho coloca em análise a obrigatoriedade da educação infantil no Brasil com foco na institucionalização da criança desde a tenra idade, buscando correlacionar infância, educação, governamentalidade e o refinamento das técnicas de governo. Entendemos a infância não como fato natural, mas como acontecimento sócio e culturalmente produzido, organizado por regulações potentes que instituem maneiras de cuidar e educar a criança seja na família ou nos demais espaços, como a escola. De certo, as ações da educação infantil permanecem promovendo processos de subjetivação, seja ao determinar, enquadrar e controlar os comportamentos das crianças por meio de técnicas de dominação seja ao estimulá-las para que operem de acordo com os padrões estabelecidos, formando condutas resilientes, imobilizando-as em papéis, silenciando-as. Deste modo, imergirmos nas práticas que caminham pela vertente da institucionalização de crianças, a partir dos estudos de Michel Foucault, estabelecendo relações entre os campos de saber, tipos de normatividade e formas de subjetividade na educação infantil. Elegemos a análise genealógica proposta por Foucault e a análise institucional de acordo com Lourau, como metodologias para a compreensão dos processos em curso, tensionando as práticas diárias, dando visibilidade a diferentes formas do fazer cotidiano e percebendo as resistências como potência. Entendemos como desafio a criação de espaços de discussão, que não sejam construídos pelo sujeito da falta, mas que possam perceber como potência o que é visto como ausência no outro. Necessitamos desta forma, estabelecer regiões limítrofes de existência única, de experiência vivida, existência anárquica de qualquer criança e não só de espaços de capturas, ordenações e silenciamentos. Assim, linhas de fuga como proposto por Deleuze e Guattari insurgirão como possibilidade, tendo como horizonte uma vida não fascista, como convida Foucault, para os fazeres e saberes de e na educação infantil. / This thesis challenges the compulsory quality of preschool education in Brazil, focusing on the institutionalization of children from a young age and trying to correlate early childhood education, governmentality and the refinement of government techniques. We understand childhood is not a natural fact, but a socially and culturally produced event, organized by powerful regulations that establish ways in which to care for and educate children, be it in the family or in other spheres, such as school. Certainly, the actions of early childhood education encourage processes of subjectivation, be it by determining, regulating and controlling the behavior of children through techniques of domination, be it by encouraging them to operate according to established standards and therefore generating resilient behaviors, immobilizing the children on papers, silencing them. Thus, in light of Michel Foucaults studies, we explore the practices that move along the lines of the institutionalization of children, establishing relationships between the fields of knowledge, the types of normativity, and the forms of subjectivity in early childhood education. The genealogical analysis proposed by Foucault and Louraus institutional analysis were chosen as methodologies in order to understand ongoing processes, thus challenging daily practices, raising the visibility of different ways of everyday doing and perceiving resistance as potency. We understand there is a challenge in the creation of spaces for discussion; spaces which are not constructed by the subject of discourse, but where what is seen as a lack in the others, can be seen as potency. We need, therefore, to establish border regions of unique existence, of lived experience, anarchic existence of every child; not just spaces where capturing, commanding and silencing prevail. Consequently, "lines of flight", as defined by Deleuze and Guattari, rise up as a possibility when the horizon is "a non-fascist life", as proposed by Foucault, for the actions and the plural knowledge on and in early childhood education.