Dialogue and governmentality-in-action
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Ann Starbæk Bager
Abstract
We explore how dialogue as governmentality-in-action was both overtly challenged and unintentionally employed in an interdisciplinary leadership development forum held at a university. We study the forum as a site to explore Foucault’s understanding of the conduct of conduct combined with Agamben’s and Deleuze’s proposals to advance and nuance the concept of dispositif. We compare dispositif with Bakhtin’s and Linell’s notions of dialogicality and dialogism as sites of centripetal and centrifugal forces with heteroglossia and orientation to third parties. This methodological move makes it possible to study dialogue and dispositif as related concepts that are lived out in situated practices. We employ membership categorisation analysis (MCA) to complement a multimodal conversation analysis of the opening lecture of the forum to show the taken-for-granted nature of the setting as a dispositif.
Abstract
We explore how dialogue as governmentality-in-action was both overtly challenged and unintentionally employed in an interdisciplinary leadership development forum held at a university. We study the forum as a site to explore Foucault’s understanding of the conduct of conduct combined with Agamben’s and Deleuze’s proposals to advance and nuance the concept of dispositif. We compare dispositif with Bakhtin’s and Linell’s notions of dialogicality and dialogism as sites of centripetal and centrifugal forces with heteroglossia and orientation to third parties. This methodological move makes it possible to study dialogue and dispositif as related concepts that are lived out in situated practices. We employ membership categorisation analysis (MCA) to complement a multimodal conversation analysis of the opening lecture of the forum to show the taken-for-granted nature of the setting as a dispositif.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- New perspectives on discourse and governmentality 1
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Part I: Intersecting governmentalities in public discourse
- Governing citizen engagement 73
- The discursive intersection of the government of others and the government of self in the face of climate change 95
- The art of not governing too much in vocational rehabilitation encounters 119
- Governing governments? 149
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PART II: Discourse, practice and prefigurative governmentalities
- Governing safe operations at a distance 179
- Dialogue and governmentality-in-action 209
- Diagnosing transnationality 235
- Governmentality, counter-conduct and prefigurative demonstrations 265
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PART III: Discourse, policy and governmentality
- Governmentality through intertextuality 297
- Exploring the intersections between governmentality studies and critical discourse analysis 323
- Revealing the governmentality of demographic change in Germany with the manifold discourse-analytical ‘toolbox’ of Foucault 353
- Notes on contributors 387
- Name index 393
- Subject index 395
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgments vii
- New perspectives on discourse and governmentality 1
-
Part I: Intersecting governmentalities in public discourse
- Governing citizen engagement 73
- The discursive intersection of the government of others and the government of self in the face of climate change 95
- The art of not governing too much in vocational rehabilitation encounters 119
- Governing governments? 149
-
PART II: Discourse, practice and prefigurative governmentalities
- Governing safe operations at a distance 179
- Dialogue and governmentality-in-action 209
- Diagnosing transnationality 235
- Governmentality, counter-conduct and prefigurative demonstrations 265
-
PART III: Discourse, policy and governmentality
- Governmentality through intertextuality 297
- Exploring the intersections between governmentality studies and critical discourse analysis 323
- Revealing the governmentality of demographic change in Germany with the manifold discourse-analytical ‘toolbox’ of Foucault 353
- Notes on contributors 387
- Name index 393
- Subject index 395
