Doing policy: enacting a policy assemblage about domestic violence

Abstract

This article explores how public policies regarding domestic violence aim at assembling a fragmented domain of views, attitudes and practices in a coherent manner. We propose to approach policy from an object-oriented anthropology, which makes it necessary to understand how objects come into being and to explore their ontology. We argue that policy objects, such as domestic violence, become real and multiply in practice when they associate in an assemblage: their ontology is relational. This implies an emphasis on motion, non-coherence and multiplicity in the study of how policy objects are enacted. We illustrate this approach by sharing a narrative of the development of a policy instrument, the reporting code on domestic violence and child abuse in Rotterdam (the Netherlands). The case study is focused on the interaction between the reporting code and its normative inscription, which is contested by a number of professionals. In order to demonstrate that policy instruments aim at constructing a new social order, we draw special attention to various modes of syncretism that are applied to create coherence.

Assembling research integrity: negotiating a policy object in scientific governance

“…Contra other cases (e.g. Mellaard and van Meijl 2017;Wright 2016), the effort to force coherence or syncretism in research integrity seems to have largely failed. As in studies by Lam (2010), Smith-Doerr andVardi (2015), or Linkova (2013), it is possible to resist, reject, or ignore the governance regime exemplified by the Code of Conduct and to enact research integrity as a very different kind of assemblage.…”

“…For Mol (2002), in particular, to be attentive to objects is to be attentive to the diverse ways in which they are enacted, as well as the techniques through which these diverse enactments are coordinated and their differences managed. To apply this thinking to policy objects is thus to emphasize that it is important not to reify or essentialize such objects; rather, to frame 'research integrity' as a policy object is to anticipate its multiplicity and its diverse relationalities within different sites (Mellaard and van Meijl 2017;Mol 2002). In -potentially -being assembled differently in different sites, policy objects will be contextual, shifting, and contingent.…”

“…Here our central argument is that, while the Code enacts, and attempts to finalize, one version of research integrity, this remains contested. Integrity continues to be assembled (Mellaard and van Meijl 2017) in different ways in different sites and by different actors. In closing we reflect on the implications of this argument for current policy efforts toward the governance of research integrity and scientific practice more generally.…”

Domestic violence policies in the Netherlands: A regime of deficiency

“…For that reason, too, it is necessary to examine how exactly these different dimensions constitute the governing regime. We distinguish four different desires that may be considered characteristic of domestic violence policies: the will to protect; the will to improve (Li, 2007); the will to purity (see also Mellaard and Van Meijl, 2017) and, finally, the will to control.…”

“…They are expected to be sensitive to signs of abuse and violence and to act upon their suspicion in order to protect people from harm. As we have discussed elsewhere (Mellaard and Van Meijl, 2017), however, in daily practices professionals have many obligations and are not constantly focused on the battle against domestic violence. As a consequence, policies do not always achieve the changes that are desired.…”