Regulating Social Life

This book presents the original concept of the 'dispositif of age', combining post-Foucauldian analytics of the dispositif, discourse and governmentality with the historical semantics of Reinhart Koselleck to explore the functions of the notion of youth in the regulation of social life. Making use of examples from sources including scientific and media statements, youth policy programmes, and strategies at international (European) and local (Polish) levels, the author shows how this concept of youth supports processes of social regulation and contributes to the implementation of political goals as specific responses to issues such as radicalization and violence, unemployment, and economic crisis. This book will be of interest not only to scholars of discourse and youth studies, but also to all post-Foucauldian researchers with an interest in going beyond simple 'applicationism'.

Explores the relationship between discourses and power strategies and their roles in universalising the concept of the youth Destabilises 'problems' linked to the youth by showing different layers of apparatisation and generalisation, and how they regulate social life Draws on the works of Foucault and Koselleck to describe and interpret the temporal tension in the dispositif of age between the past, the present and the future

Autorentext

Helena Ostrowicka is Associate Professor and Chair of Research Methodology and Discourse Studies at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. She is interested in the issues of broadly understood educational, youth, and scientific policy. She focuses on exploring the post-Foucauldian perspective in the analysis of discourse, and the relations of knowledge and power in four institutional contexts: education, science, politics, and the media.

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: The dispositif of age: dispositif, the concept of youth and temporalization.- Chapter 3: The 3-C discourses and governing by the notion of youth.- Chapter 4: Regulating social life: between experience and expectation.- Chapter 5: Conclusion.- Appendix 1.