Against the grain: towards a critical genealogy of

Against the grain:
towards a critical genealogy of resident resistance
to public and social housing policy change
8TH AUSTRALASIAN HOUSING RESEARCHERS CONFERENCE, 18-20 FEBRUARY
2015, HOBART - TASMANIA
Dr Angela Nunn, Southern Cross University
Background
My current interest in public and social housing
tenants’ views and experiences emerged from my
doctoral research on Community Renewal in NSW
– Explored how ‘community’ was constituted and deployed
in the government of public estates and what it meant for
those involved
– Utilised a governmentality analytic
– Finding 2: the extent that tenants could act in their own
interests , even after having been engaged in tenant
participation and capacity building through Community
Renewal, was impeded by structural, institutional and
organisational factors (Nunn 2014)
Finding 2
Finding 2:
– The extent that tenants could act in their own interests ,
even after having been engaged in tenant participation
and capacity building through Community Renewal, was
impeded by structural, institutional and organisational
factors (Nunn 2014)
– In the case study of one site where Community Renewal
was deployed tenants with a long history of volunteerism
and community engagement disengaged due to their
experiences with Community Renewal (Nunn 2014)
Reflections 1
Reflections on Finding 2
– The tenants who were active but then disengaged based
on their experiences
– Broad claims that public and social tenants are disengaged
(welfare dependency discourse)
– We know this adds to the stigma of places and people
– Interested in involved tenants (those still involved) and
how their situated knowledge can be acknowledged, and
– The possibilities for rethinking resistance through their
knowledge and experiences
Reflections 2
Reflections on governmentality
– Best understood as an analytical toolbox
– Avoid applicationism (Walters 2012)
– Critical potential is found in encountering this toolbox
(Walters 2012)
How do we encounter governmentality?
– Concept development (cf. Rose & Miller 1992)
– Change the angle of analysis (cf. O’Malley 1996)
– Critical potential of genealogy (cf. Bevir 2010; Medina 2011)
Governmentality
Definition of the term is a matter of debate but can be
understood in three ways
– Governance in its broadest sense: ‘the conduct of conduct’
(Foucault 1982, pp.220-221)
– Governance in the domain of states: thinking and acting
on populations (Foucault 1991)
– Liberal approach to governance: ‘transformation of the
modern state’ (Walters 2012, pp.12-13)
Concerned with the first two of these
– How tenants are governed and govern themselves
Change the angle of analysis
Take a new starting point for analysis
– Start with the situated knowledge of the objects of a
political intervention (public and social housing tenants)
– Rather than analyse the state’s political rationality
– AIM: to problematise how governing is conducted
– Doing so is one way to recognise the impact of past
housing policies already noted in the literature (cf. Peel 1995,
2003; Vinson 1999)
– Tentative question becomes:
How is governing, conducted as it is, a problem?
Genealogy
Critical potential of genealogy is heightened if we think
in terms of producing a counter-history
– The aim is to illuminate what is disqualified from
conventional histories
As Medina suggests:
‘The counter- histories that critical genealogies can produce are
possible because there are people who remember against the
grain, people whose memories do not fit the historical narratives
available’ (2011, p. 12 emphasis added) .
Some possibilities …
Call into question the policies and practices that have
created the current public and social housing system in
Australia
– A system that many have described as a failure
Twin emphasis
– Recognise tenants’ situated knowledge which is typically
downplayed, ignored or disqualified (Foucault’s
subjugated knowledges)
– Question the matter of responsibility for the state of
public and social housing
References
• Bevir, M 2010, ‘Rethinking Governmentality: Towards genealogies of
governance’, European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 423-441.
• Foucault, M 1982, 'Afterword: The Subject and Power', in HL Dreyfus & P
Rabinow (eds), Michel Foucault: beyond structuralism and hermeneutics,
Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead.
• Foucault, M 1991, 'Governmentality', in G Burchell, C Gordon & P Miller
(eds), The Foucault effect: studies in governmentality, The University of
Chicago Press, Chicago.
• Nunn, A 2014, Governing the Estates: the deployment of ‘community’ on
public housing estates, unpublished thesis, The University of Queensland.
• Medina, J 2011, ‘Towards a Foucaultian Epistemology of Resistance:
Counter-Memory, Epistemic Friction, and Geurilla Pluralism’, Foucault
Studies, no. 12, pp. 9-35.
References
• O’Malley, P 1996, ‘Indigenous governance’, Economy and Society, vol. 25, no.
3, pp. 310-326.
• Peel, M 1995, Good times hard times: the past and the future in Elizabeth,
Melbourne University Press, Carlyon.
• Peel, M 2003, The lowest rung: voices of Australian poverty, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
• Rose, N & Miller, P 1992, ‘Political power beyond the state: problematics of
government’, British Journal of Sociology, vol. 43, no. 2, June, pp. 173-205.
• Vinson, T 1999, Unequal in life: the distribution of social disadvantage in
Victoria and New South Wales, The Ignatius Centre for Social Policy Research,
Jesuit Social Services Ltd, Richmond.
• Walters, W 2012, Governmentality: critical encounters, Routledge, London.
Thankyou
angela.nunn@scu.edu.au