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1 – 10 of 281
Article
Publication date: 3 January 2023

Juan Saavedra and Catalina Alvarado-Cañuta

This article analyzes biopolitical strategies for the recovery of neoliberal normality in urban areas affected by earthquakes in 1985, 2010 and 2015 in Chile (intensity >8.0Mw).

Abstract

Purpose

This article analyzes biopolitical strategies for the recovery of neoliberal normality in urban areas affected by earthquakes in 1985, 2010 and 2015 in Chile (intensity >8.0Mw).

Design/methodology/approach

This is a qualitative design research. In total, 198 semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven focus groups. The data were processed in search of discursive threads, guided by the categories contained in the analysis and those arising from the interview transcripts.

Findings

Results describe three clusters of discursive threads: disruption of normality, strategies of disaster biopolitics and narratives on the recovery of normality in the medium to long term. In the analyzed cases, disaster biopolitics entered domestic and community spaces to govern life; while the aim was to safeguard lives, it also sought to ensure the continuity of the neoliberal regime. The disaster biopolitics used the exception to normalize, constructing subjectivity and memory around the idea of catastrophes.

Research limitations/implications

The qualitative design can be used in sudden and extreme situations, but it is not possible to anticipate similar results in other kind of disasters (e.g. drought).

Social implications

This study wants to contribute a political vision about disasters by describing the process of restoring order, which follows highly destructive disasters, by demonstrating that in Chile, the biopolitical exception was key to returning to neoliberal normality.

Originality/value

The findings can help improve emergency responses and propose the necessity of political contextualization in post-disaster recovery processes.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 May 2022

Erin Jade Twyford

This study aims to fill the gaps in mandated reports with social accounts to provide more inclusive accountability during a crisis using the illustrative example of Anglicare’s…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to fill the gaps in mandated reports with social accounts to provide more inclusive accountability during a crisis using the illustrative example of Anglicare’s Newmarch House during a deadly COVID-19 outbreak.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a close-reading method to analyse Anglicare’s annual review, reports, board meeting minutes and Royal Commission into Aged Care submissions. Informed by Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, the study collocates alternate “social accounts” in the form of investigative journalism, newspaper articles and media commentary on the events that transpired at Newmarch House to unveil a more nuanced and human-centric rendering of the ramifications of a public health/aged care crisis.

Findings

COVID-19 exacerbated pre-existing issues within the aged care sector, exemplified by Newmarch House. The privileging of financial concerns and lack of care, leadership and accountability contributed to residents’ physical, emotional and psychological distress. The biopolitical policy pursued by powerful actors let die vulnerable individuals while simultaneously making live more productive citizens and “the economy”.

Research limitations/implications

Organisations express their accountability by using financial information provided by accounting, even during circumstances with more prevailing humanistic concerns. A transformational shift in how we define, view and teach accounting is required to recognise accounting as a social and moral practice that should instead prioritise human dignity and care for the betterment of our world.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the limited literature on aged care, extending particularly into the impact of COVID-19 while contributing to the literature concerned with crisis accountability. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is also the first to examine a form of biopolitics centred on making live something other than persons – the economy.

Details

Meditari Accountancy Research, vol. 31 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-372X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 August 2021

Chandana Alawattage and Danture Wickramasinghe

This paper draws on the concepts of biopolitics and neoliberal governmentality to provide a sociological analysis of the strategic turn in management accounting.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper draws on the concepts of biopolitics and neoliberal governmentality to provide a sociological analysis of the strategic turn in management accounting.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual and review paper addresses four interrelated questions: How can the early history of management accounting be revisited from a biopolitical angle? How has strategising been linked to the neoliberal evolution of capitalism? How has this neoliberal connection transformed management accounting into its new form of strategising? What are the implications of this transformation for future research and pedagogical practices in management accounting?

Findings

Management accounting is strategised in four interrelated directions: by absorbing the jurisdictional and veridictional roles of the market into the calculative practices of management accounting; by transforming management accounting's centripetal hierarchical order of calculations to a centrifugal order the neoliberal governmentality demanded; by re-calculating the point of production as a site in which labour now takes the form of entrepreneurs of the self, performing not only material but also immaterial elements of managerial labour; and by rescoping management accounting to address issues the “fourth or the global age of security” brought, including the social and the environmental ones.

Research limitations/implications

The research expands the existing frames of reference for exploring contemporary calculative practices in neoliberal governmentality.

Social implications

Strategic turn in management accounting implicates in issues of security, governance and ethics and offers “new opportunities” for expanding management accounting's relevance beyond economic enterprises to various civil society and political constituencies.

Originality/value

This paper makes a theoretical contribution to management accounting's contemporary developments by demonstrating how it moves into biopolitical circulation.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 35 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 February 2020

David Redmalm

This article adopts Foucault's notion of a bipolar technology of disciplinary power and regulatory biopower to address the tension between discipline and freedom in domestic…

Abstract

Purpose

This article adopts Foucault's notion of a bipolar technology of disciplinary power and regulatory biopower to address the tension between discipline and freedom in domestic relationships between human and nonhuman animals commonly referred to as “pets.” In doing so, the article examines the promises and pitfalls of thinking through pet keeping as a form of lived, posthumanist critique.

Design/methodology/approach

The argument relies on an interview study with 20 pet owners—most of the interviews conducted in their homes together with their pets—to conceptualize how they organize their lives in relation to their pets.

Findings

The analysis shows that the boundaries of the home, the play of power between bodies, and the “conditions of an unconditional love” are central to producing the pet relationship as inherently meaningful and as an indispensable part of the lives of both pet keepers and pets. A balance between discipline and freedom enables the construction of both human and other identities: pet owners produce their pets' subjectivity by speaking of them as autonomous persons, while pets' presence in the home also enables their owners' subjectivity.

Social implications

The article critically examines interspecies relationships, which by extension can benefit nonhuman animals. It argues that pet keeping can challenge anthropocentrism and unsustainable consumption lifestyles, but it may also reinforce prevailing biopolitical logics, if it remains maintained within a secluded domestic or cultural sphere.

Originality/value

The article draws on original data. While Foucauldian theory has been used to discuss pet keeping, empirical studies of pet keeping that rely on this theoretical framework are scarce.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 41 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 31 May 2022

Pelagia Soultatou

This article aims at the sociological inquiry seeking to identify meanings ascribed to the term of vulnerability by official spokespersons, to explore a novel public health policy…

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims at the sociological inquiry seeking to identify meanings ascribed to the term of vulnerability by official spokespersons, to explore a novel public health policy with reference to vulnerable populations and to trace its enactment with particular attention to vulnerable populations in Greece; finally a case of contest among the state and the civil society over refugees' rights will be located against public health politics and biopolitics in the context of the pandemic Covid-19.

Design/methodology/approach

The interpretivist perspective towards analysis of textual data is adopted. Discourse analysis and content analysis are applied to analyze four sets of data.

Findings

The main findings show: (1) ambiguity over the terminology, (2) insufficient policy design and policy enactment towards the protection of vulnerable populations' health, (3) an illuminative case of contest among civil society and the state against infringement of refugees' human rights which may interpreted in terms of a tradition of solidarity.

Originality/value

The Foucauldian notion of biopolitics provides the grounds to understanding how market prevails over life at the expense of those in greater need, and how the state, serving homo economicus, intensifies instead of alleviating health vulnerabilities.

Details

Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences, vol. 4 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2632-279X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 August 2017

Silvia Posocco

What difference, if any, does it make to appeal to the ordinary and the everyday, the situated and always-already-in-relation, the emergent and the quasi-event (Povinelli, 2011)…

Abstract

Purpose

What difference, if any, does it make to appeal to the ordinary and the everyday, the situated and always-already-in-relation, the emergent and the quasi-event (Povinelli, 2011), as simultaneously sites, objects and frames? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

Through a focus on epistemological and methodological reflection, this paper asks: what is the relation between the biopolitical and necropolitical terrain in and through which experience unravels and the conceptual apparatuses which hold the promise of analysis and critique? What analytics, methods and ethics do contemporary life and death formations and intersecting precarious modes of existence elicit?

Findings

In this paper, I approach these questions ethnographically, with reference to debates in social and cultural theory and drawing on long-term anthropological research in Guatemala.

Originality/value

This paper aims to make contribution to debates on biopolitical and necropolitical processes and dynamics, by reflecting on the implications for epistemologies, methods and infrastructures.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 17 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 August 2017

Marisela Montenegro, Joan Pujol and Silvia Posocco

Contemporary governmentality combines biopolitical and necropolitical logics to establish social, political and physical borders that classify and stratify populations using…

1403

Abstract

Purpose

Contemporary governmentality combines biopolitical and necropolitical logics to establish social, political and physical borders that classify and stratify populations using symbolic and material marks as, for example, nationality, gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, social class and/or disability. The social sciences have been prolific in the analysis of alterities and, in turn, implicated in the epistemologies and knowledge practices that underpin and sustain the multiplication of frontiers that define essential differences between populations. The purpose of this paper is to develop a strategy that analyze and subvert the logic of bordering inherent in the bio/necropolitical gaze. In different ways, this paper examines operations of delimitation and differentiation that contribute to monolithic definitions of subject and subjectivity.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors question border construction processes in terms of their static, homogenizing and exclusionary effects.

Findings

Instead of hierarchical stratification of populations, the papers in this special issue explore the possibilities of relationship and the conditions of such relationships. Who do we relate to? On which terms and conditions? With what purpose? In which ethical and political manner?

Originality/value

A critical understanding of the asymmetry in research practices makes visible how the researcher is legitimized to produce a representation of those researched, an interpretation of their words and actions without feedback or contribution to the specific context where the research has been carried out. Deconstructive and relational perspectives are put forward as critical strands that can set the basis of different approaches to research and social practice.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 17 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 July 2020

Penelope Van den Bussche and Claire Dambrin

This paper investigates online evaluation processes on peer-to-peer platforms to highlight how online peer evaluation enacts neoliberal subjects and collectives.

2613

Abstract

Purpose

This paper investigates online evaluation processes on peer-to-peer platforms to highlight how online peer evaluation enacts neoliberal subjects and collectives.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses netnography (Kozinets, 2002) to study the online community of Airbnb. It is also based on 18 interviews, mostly with Airbnb users, and quantitative data about reviews.

Findings

Results indicate that peer-to-peer platforms constitute biopolitical infrastructures. They enact and consolidate narcissistic entrepreneurs of the self through evaluation processes and consolidating a for-show community. Specifically, three features make evaluation a powerful neoliberal agent. The object of evaluation shifts from the service to the user's own worth (1). The public nature of the evaluation (2) and symetrical accountability between the evaluator and the evaluatee (3) contribute to excessively positive reviews and this keeps the market fluid.

Social implications

This paper calls for problematization of the idea of sharing in the so-called “sharing economy”. What is shared on peer-to-peer platforms is the comfort of engaging with people like ourselves.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literature on online accounting by extending consideration of evaluation beyond the review process. It also stresses that trust in the evaluative infrastructure is fostered by narcissistic relationships between users, who come to use the platform as a mirror. The peer-to-peer context refreshes the our knowledge on evaluation in a corporate context by highlighting phenomena of standardized spontaneity and euphemized evaluation language. This allows evaluation processes to incorporate a market logic without having to fuel competition.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 34 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 August 2022

Albena Dzhurova and Arthur Sementelli

This paper examines how contemporary workplace surveillance can simultaneously incentivize and commodify workforce behavior. Specifically, workplace surveillance is…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper examines how contemporary workplace surveillance can simultaneously incentivize and commodify workforce behavior. Specifically, workplace surveillance is reconceptualized as rent-seeking, which offers a framework for analyzing novel employer-employee relationships stemming from alternate views of risk and reward.

Design/methodology/approach

The case of workplace microchipping is studied qualitatively as a backdrop for theorizing emergent labor relations in the context of surveillance capitalism and biopolitics.

Findings

Reconsidering surveillance within the context of personal risk and entrepreneurial lure offers much to 21st century discourse on labor and supervision. It is imperative that the public sector engages in appropriate regulatory protocols to manage emergent behavior in organizations.

Originality/value

This study departs from the popular conceptualization of human microchipping as an intersection of legal and ethical considerations of surveillance. Instead, the authors examine a different aspect of the microchipping phenomenon, taking into account employee creative reactions to employer surveillance in the context of risk and return.

Peer review

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2022-0009

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 50 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 25 July 2022

Andrea Lucarelli

This study aims to outline an axiology of inclusivity, which can facilitate self-reflection on the possible impact of acting and pursuing a more inclusive branding and marketing…

1597

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to outline an axiology of inclusivity, which can facilitate self-reflection on the possible impact of acting and pursuing a more inclusive branding and marketing for places.

Design/methodology/approach

By deconstructing the main assumption, which constitutes the new inclusive paradigm in the marketing and branding of places as more participatory, responsible and democratic, this article tackles critical and pragmatist concerns about the political dimension and its implications for branding and marketing theories and practices in the realm of places.

Findings

The article argues that, to be understood and enacted as inclusive, branding and marketing should be seen and act as (bio)political arts of government, characterized by the impolitical as an alternative form of political praxis, whose axiological foundation is based on a particular form of civism, which offers a different mode and stance of approaching political effects and impacts for all stakeholders involved.

Originality/value

Little has been written about the political value, substance and appearance that indicate inclusivity as a fundamental notion for participation, engagement and democracy. This article contributes to the existing literature, arguing that inclusivity should be demystified, as it may present a self-fulfilling discourse that might create political problems.

Details

Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, vol. 25 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1352-2752

Keywords

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