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Studies of Discourse and Governmentality: New perspectives and methods
Edited by Paul McIlvenny, Julia Zhukova Klausen and Laura Bang Lindegaard
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 66] 2016
► pp. 95–118

The discursive intersection of the government of others and the government of self in the face of climate change

The chapter demonstrates how empirical discourse analysis can contribute to the study of two issues of particular significance in recent studies of governmentality. Firstly, the observation that the relationship between power and resistance is specifically contradictory, in that resistance marks both a boundary and a constitutive moment of government, and, secondly, the realisation that governmentality is somehow intertwined with the continuous becoming of ethical subjects, or, in other words, with continuously negotiated practices of subjectivation. The chapter pursues and enforces the theoretical argument that practices of subjectivation should be understood as an aspect of the unceasingly negotiated interdependence of power and resistance. This suggests that this theoretical insight can be fulfilled in empirical research if studies of governmentality are interconnected with membership categorisation analysis and conversation analysis. To demonstrate the benefits of this approach, the chapter provides an in-depth analysis of focus group data from sessions in a small Danish village in which citizens accomplish the contested discursive intersection of, on the one hand, a municipal strategy aimed at ‘greening’ the citizens’ transportation conduct and, on the other hand, the citizens’ attempt to conduct their own conduct.

Published online: 29 June 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.66.03ban
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