Chapter 2
Combining governmentality and discourse analysis
An application on focus groups discussing radioactive
decontamination
This chapter introduces a governmentality approach to issues of
risk and safety, and carves out an analytical framework that combines it with
appraisal analysis. From the perspective of governmentality, responsibilisation is
the social process whereby actors assign/assume various moral duties that benefit
governing purposes. Institutions and organisations are also increasingly trying to
involve and motivate people to manage risk themselves and thus ‘partner’ with them
in large-scale tasks of improving health and safety. Appraisal analysis can help
demonstrate how actors evaluate risks and safety measures and how they assume or
resist positions of responsibility. The analytical model proposed more specifically
aids an examination of how actors appraise (a) what are risks and what should be
protected; (b) safety measures spanning collective and individual protection (or
lack thereof); and (c) safety measures spanning behavioural prompts and risk
elimination. Choices along these dimensions stand in a dialectical relationship to
certain pervasive, global discourses of risk governance. Focus group discussions on
a nuclear power plant (NPP) accident scenario are analysed, for which state agencies
plan to recover contaminated neighbourhoods. The analysis shows that an enduring
inconsistency in the policy of governing risk through the logic of recovery and
individualised responsibility is a risk mitigation strategy that requires that the
risk be considered tolerable by those who are to face it – a condition that is met
only partially. It is therefore likely that such a policy will be met with
resistance in the event of a nuclear accident, as it was after the Fukushima Daiichi
disaster.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Governmentality and risk
- 3.Bridging governmentality and appraisal analysis
- 3.1Outlining key dimensions of discourse and risk
- 3.2Linguistic appraisal resources
- 3.3Focus group interviews
- 4.Examples of appraisal of radiation risk governance
- 4.1The appraisal of objects of risk
- 4.2The appraisal of objects at risk
- 4.3The articulation of collective risk mitigation
- 4.4The lack of collective risk elimination
- 4.5The articulation of individualised risk mitigation
- 4.6The articulation of individualised risk elimination
- 5.Conclusion
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Notes
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References
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Appendix