Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / States are contingently formed, enacting modes of governing in diverse and prosaic ways. States’ roles in social governing are shaped by the specificities of institutional contexts and peopled practices. Yet much recent analysis of social governing ignores the influence of state institutions and workers. In such analyses, social governing is taken to be largely driven by an overarching mode of governance—neoliberalism. Indeed for many researchers, techniques of social governing such as interagency working represent practices through which to trace neoliberalism’s enactments, variabilities, co-options and resistances. In obscuring the prosaics of peopled states, our understandings centre on ‘the state’ as a coherent and cogent entity, one that increasingly governs the social in neoliberalised ways. The premise of this thesis is that interagency practices of social governing need to be examined from prosaic perspectives. Such an attention to everyday practice widens the analytical lens on social governing; allowing for disjunctive possibilities of everyday governing rather than focusing on over-determined discoveries of neoliberal rule. Indeed, a prosaics of state institutions relocates interagency workers and institutions from their positioning at the end-points of neoliberal rule and, instead, welcomes their diverse political and social actions as the very foundations on which governing is shaped. In so doing, it reveals practices of state institutions and interagency workers that can be creative, emotive and, as I assert, caring. In accessing everyday spaces through my research, I utilise a case study interagency programme of the New South Wales Government entitled Families First, which attempts to better facilitate the support of families with young children. It is an examination of the spaces of Families First that reveals the multiple ideological framings, congested institutional histories, changeable politics and everyday practices of workers that characterise state institutions and form the foundations of social governing. Rather than rehearse or raze understandings of neoliberal governing, the inclusiveness of a prosaic approach allows neoliberalism to co-exist as a potential practice of diverse interagency contexts; supporting hopeful perspectives on interagency working and nurturing a mutual language of prosaic politics, governing and ethics.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / States are contingently formed, enacting modes of governing in diverse and prosaic ways. States’ roles in social governing are shaped by the specificities of institutional contexts and peopled practices. Yet much recent analysis of social governing ignores the influence of state institutions and workers. In such analyses, social governing is taken to be largely driven by an overarching mode of governance—neoliberalism. Indeed for many researchers, techniques of social governing such as interagency working represent practices through which to trace neoliberalism’s enactments, variabilities, co-options and resistances. In obscuring the prosaics of peopled states, our understandings centre on ‘the state’ as a coherent and cogent entity, one that increasingly governs the social in neoliberalised ways. The premise of this thesis is that interagency practices of social governing need to be examined from prosaic perspectives. Such an attention to everyday practice widens the analytical lens on social governing; allowing for disjunctive possibilities of everyday governing rather than focusing on over-determined discoveries of neoliberal rule. Indeed, a prosaics of state institutions relocates interagency workers and institutions from their positioning at the end-points of neoliberal rule and, instead, welcomes their diverse political and social actions as the very foundations on which governing is shaped. In so doing, it reveals practices of state institutions and interagency workers that can be creative, emotive and, as I assert, caring. In accessing everyday spaces through my research, I utilise a case study interagency programme of the New South Wales Government entitled Families First, which attempts to better facilitate the support of families with young children. It is an examination of the spaces of Families First that reveals the multiple ideological framings, congested institutional histories, changeable politics and everyday practices of workers that characterise state institutions and form the foundations of social governing. Rather than rehearse or raze understandings of neoliberal governing, the inclusiveness of a prosaic approach allows neoliberalism to co-exist as a potential practice of diverse interagency contexts; supporting hopeful perspectives on interagency working and nurturing a mutual language of prosaic politics, governing and ethics.