Who is the subject of neoliberal rights? Governmentality, subjectification and the letter of the law

Anna Selmeczi

Third World Quarterly, 2015, vol. 36, issue 6, 1076-1091

Abstract: Motivated by the litigious politics of the South African shack-dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, this paper enquires into the knowledge dynamics implied by the governmentality literature’s take on the (neo)liberal deployment of (human) rights. It suggests that by implicitly constructing the freedom of codified rights as illusionary and opposed to the reality of neoliberal rationalities of government, this scholarship posits a cognitive hierarchy between agents of government and the governed, and thus reproduces the power dynamics that it seeks to criticise. Interweaving a presentation of Abahlali’s self-articulation as knowledgeable and rightful subjects with Jacques Rancière’s notion of ‘literariness’, the paper accounts for codified rights’ potential to enable the disruption of such dynamics, and traces the governmentality literature’s suspicion towards this potential back to its textual methodology.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2015.1047194

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