'Conduct of conduct' or the shaping of 'adequate dispositions'? Labour market and career guidance in four European countries

Isabelle Darmon and Coralie Perez
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Isabelle Darmon: University of Manchester [Manchester]

Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL

Abstract: In this paper, we provide an analysis of the deployment of labour market and career guidance as an instrument of liberal governmental rationality, and hence as a key tool for shaping attitudes suitable for the labour market. We characterize such processes and their effects on both those in receipt of guidance and those delivering it, on the basis of a three-year study in France, Slovenia, Spain and the UK. This leads us to put forward the problematic character of the notion of 'conduct of conduct', especially owing to the conflation implied between adaptation to governmental ends and freedom. We suggest that Max Weber's categories for depicting active adaptation in bureaucratic capitalism provide a more grounded grasp of the processes involved, and that the radical distinction he establishes between adaptation and the possibility of conduct may provide a new basis for conceptualizing resistance to liberal governmental rationality.

Keywords: adaptation; labour market; coaching; liberal governmentality; resistance; Max Weber; marché du travail; orientation; accompganement; gouvernemantalité (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Published in Critical Social Policy, 2011, 31 (1), pp.77-101. ⟨10.1177/0261018310385440⟩

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Working Paper: 'Conduct of conduct' or the shaping of 'adequate dispositions'? Labour market and career guidance in four European countries (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00563220

DOI: 10.1177/0261018310385440

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