The neoliberal subject: resilience, adaptation and vulnerability

Coşkun, Efser Rana

doi:10.1080/23340460.2016.1292449

Cited by 26 publications

(32 citation statements)

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“…Development and adaptation are likewise bound together (Chandler and Reid, 2016; Ireland, 2012). People endowed with social safety nets, robust information and social networks, quality healthcare and infrastructure, and stable, living incomes weather environmental shocks better and are more equipped to face future climate threats than those with limited assets or social entitlements (Bohle et al., 1994; Ribot, 1995).…”

Section: From Growth To Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Existing studies of neoliberal climate subjects have productively challenged the responsibilizing and depoliticizing tendencies of mainstream climate adaptation approaches (Chandler and Reid, 2016;Mikulewicz, 2020;Salamanca and Rigg, 2017). Yet the imperative for adaptation subjects to compete has been inadequately addressed, allowing grave justice effects to recur -namely, the unchecked diffusion of competition logic in adaptation programming locks in and naturalizes inequality (Fieldman, 2011).…”

Section: Competing Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Compelled to Compete: Rendering Climate Change Vulnerability Investable

Thomas¹

2023

Development and Change

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The imperative for vulnerable populations to adapt to greater environmental variability is increasing in lockstep with the onset of wide-ranging climate change impacts. However, while critical adaptation research emphasizes the necessity of addressing the underlying drivers of vulnerability to climate change, mainstream approaches to adaptation stress economic growth as a prerequisite for climate responses. Accordingly, capital-intensive adaptation measures promote competitiveness to spur economic growth in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, where more than 18 million people face environmental hazards such as seawater intrusion, flood, drought and cyclones. This study evaluates competitiveness as a mandate for effective climate change adaptation. It finds that adaptation can advance either competition or vulnerability reduction, but it cannot logically or pragmatically pursue both.The author thanks the anonymous referees for their helpful comments as well as Daniel Esser, Jamey Essex, and the participants of the Research-in-Progress Series workshop hosted by the Development Geographies Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers and the German Development Institute (Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik) in January 2021. This workshop yielded insightful questions and comments that were invaluable to the development of the article. Field research for the study was made possible by grants from the Council of American Overseas Research Centers and the Institute of Human Geography, to which the author is indebted for their support.

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Section: From Growth To Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Competing Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compelled to Compete: Rendering Climate Change Vulnerability Investable

Thomas¹

2023

Development and Change

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“…This shifting of responsibility to communal and non-state actors is reflective of the rise of what Chandler calls a post-liberal form of governmentality (2010; Chandler and Reid, 2016): budgetary responsibility and decisionmaking powers are devolved to the communal level and the responsibility for ensuring employment and social reproduction are discursively appointed to individual households (Chandler and Reid, 2016, ch 2) while demands for redistribution and social welfare are fended off with invocations of policy conditionalities dictated by the global economy. In other words, the decentralized and community-based approach to social ordering and crime prevention emphasizes each community's own responsibility to facilitate not only the solution of problems, but also the design and implementation of measures that prevent social problems in the first place.…”

Section: Community Safety As Crime Prevention and Neoliberal Governme...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Post-Liberal Statebuilding in Central Asia

Lottholz

2022

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To Polina, with all my love vii Contents List of Figures and Tables viii Notes on Transliteration and Language ix Acknowledgements x 1The people to be thanked first are the protagonists of this research: research participants, conversation partners, interlocutors and all those ready to invite me to get to know their initiatives, projects, organizations and points of view. I am most grateful for your openness and trust and hope that the dialogue that has unfolded will continue further to new horizons. The research experience was especially enriching thanks to Alexey, Timur, and further unnamed people who patiently answered my questions, read multiple draft documents and enabled key insights. The research assistance and translation skills of Gulniza Taalaibekova and Meerim Saipova helped to broaden the perspective of the project, and the hospitality and supportive atmosphere at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek was a backbone during the fieldwork period.Second most important are the fellow travellers and comrades who have helped shape this work and made it possible to endure the institutionalized injustice of academia while remaining defiant and hoping for a better future.

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“…Moving away from the universality of homo oeconomicus that represents the "ideal" subject enshrined in liberal institutions allows neoliberalism to recast "ideal" subjectivity in practice as "empowered" compliance with neoliberal norms through subject adaptiveness and resilience (Chandler and Reid 2016). The importance of "equality" to the neoliberal project is evidenced in the (re)production of "ideal" and resilient subjectivities, which sees persistent inequalities represented as the result of poor "choice making" in private that can be overcome through subject resilience and adaptiveness in the market.…”

Section: Characterizing (Neo)liberal "Equality" Merit and Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The importance of "equality" to the neoliberal project is evidenced in the (re)production of "ideal" and resilient subjectivities, which sees persistent inequalities represented as the result of poor "choice making" in private that can be overcome through subject resilience and adaptiveness in the market. Chandler and Reid (2016) outline that neoliberalism relies on the practice of subjectivity for its hegemony, and that the neoliberal subject is largely contextualized by its resilience. Adaptation (or assimilation) to the "status quo" through governable subjectivities (ibid) serves as a tool of neoliberal governance, as it reifies the "popular common sense" and hegemony of the paradigm that constitute and enforce the subject position of the ideal citizen (Rupert, 2005).…”

Section: Characterizing (Neo)liberal "Equality" Merit and Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Equality Mythologized? Depoliticization, Discourse, and Policymaking in a Post-Crisis European Union

Humniski¹

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With the 2008 financial crisis, the European Union (EU) was launched into what has become over a decade of ongoing crises that has included the subsequent emergence of the refugee crisis, Brexit, and the COVID-19 pandemic, amidst austerity policies, reform efforts, and shifting political landscapes. Under these conditions of "polycrisis" the basis of the European project has been called into question, as recovery and reform efforts have dictated political priorities and constrained institutional capacity for fourteen years. The challenges that crises have posed to the EU's legitimacy draws attention to the foundational mythologies that hold the polity together and establish the uniquely "European" values and identities that undergird European integration. Gender equality has been continuously represented among these "European values" fuelled by the EU's longstanding commitments, however the scaling back of social provisions under the guise of crisis management prompted challenges to the EU's reputation as a gender equality leader. The election of the first woman Commission president in 2019 provided some optimism for gender actors and this dissertation interrogates the EU's presentation of its own gender equality project from 2009-2022 by investigating the "myth" of "gender equality" in the EU. "Mythologies," represent the norms and stories of the polity and are constitutive dimensions of politics, which is demonstrated in this study through the analysis of EUlevel discourse. This dissertation focuses on the intra-discursive functions that "myths" serve in EU politics and policymaking, drawing attention to the disconnect between active and celebratory commitments. By employing different qualitative methods and engaging in discourse analysis, this project investigates the mobilization of "foundational myths" in both overarching EU programmes and targeted gender policies. It then analyzes the effects of mythologizing on the politicization (or depoliticization) of gender equality. This dissertation argues that to legitimate its supranational polity in "polycrisis," the EU discursively mobilizes mythic commitments to "European values" in place of substantive efforts. It finds that the repeated representation of gender equality in the "common sense" of "European values" obscures and naturalizes its secondary status as a political priority and, as such, currently renders gender equality "mythologized" in the EU.

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The neoliberal subject: resilience, adaptation and vulnerability

Cited by 26 publications

References 0 publications

Compelled to Compete: Rendering Climate Change Vulnerability Investable

Compelled to Compete: Rendering Climate Change Vulnerability Investable

Post-Liberal Statebuilding in Central Asia

Gender Equality Mythologized? Depoliticization, Discourse, and Policymaking in a Post-Crisis European Union

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