In order to gain a broad understanding of how citizens are shaped and fostered through adult education, there is need for a variety of perspectives. In this book, we mainly draw on a theorisation inspired by the work of Michel Foucault and education scholars who have developed his ideas. However, we also draw on Axel Honnethâs (1995) theory of recognition in Chapter 6, Beverly Skeggsâs (1997) theory of respectability in Chapter 7, Nira Yuval-Davisâs (2006, 2011) theory of a politics of belonging in Chapter 8, Frantz Fanonsâs theory of whiteness and the colonial situation in Chapter 9 and BĂźlent Dikenâs (2009) theory of reactive nihilism in Chapter 10. These theorisations provide possibilities to gain a more pluralistic understanding of the processes of citizen formation, and each theorisation is further elaborated upon in the respective chapter.
A discursive approach to the formation of citizens
As we have outlined above, research on citizenship education, to a large extent, directs attention towards the question of what citizenship is, in terms of skills and competencies, and how such skills and competencies can be developed through education. Such positioning contributes to stabilising current regimes of truth, i.e. the ways in which it is made possible to speak about citizenship and education for citizenship today. In doing so, other possibilities for citizen formation than those prescribed through current regimes of truth are excluded, i.e. it becomes a question of prescription rather than a question of possibilities. In this book, we attempt to contribute something different than such prescriptive approach. Our interest is directed towards understanding how citizens come into being through a range of educational practices, or more precisely, the ways subjectivity emerges through current discourses on citizenship and the education of citizens. Such an approach could be described as a critical interrogation of the taken-for-granted ways in which we speak about and go about doing things in our present time. Our theorisation thus allows us to problematise current regimes of truth regarding citizenship and the education for citizenship.
As noted above, our critical interrogation is informed by the work of Michel Foucault (1972, 1980, 2007) and educational scholars developing some of his ideas (Fejes, 2005, 2006, 2010; Nicoll et al., 2013; Olson et al., 2015; Simons & Masschelein, 2008). Of central concern are such concepts as discourse, power, subjectivity and governmentality.
In our approach, âdiscourseâ includes what is said through speech or writing (Foucault, 1972). A statement concerning citizenship then refers to what is said recognisably of citizenship within a specific discourse, and what can be taken seriously in that the statements conform to ârulesâ of this discourse (Nicoll et al., 2013). Thus, these might be statements found in policy texts, scholarly work, politiciansâ announcements or other authoritative âtextsâ on citizenship or more widely. Statements are nodes in discursive networks that are systems of references to other texts, sentences and books (Foucault, 1972). There are rules within or behind specific discourses that support the proliferation of what can be seriously said at a certain time and space. Thus, it is the analyses of what is said by people within the settings of specific discourses that make it possible to understand citizenship in those very settings. What people think of and how they depict citizenship, or otherwise, may be quite different from what others think citizenship âshouldâ be.
Through discourses of citizenship, power operates and shapes the possible field of action. Power is here conceptualised as relational and non-intentional. Rather than asking the questions of âwhere is powerâ and âwhere does it come fromâ, Foucault (1998) suggests that we should ask the âhowâ questions of power: how is power exercised? What are the means by which it is exercised? What happens through this exercise of power, and what are the effects of this power? With such a perspective, power is understood as operating everywhere, in all relations (Foucault, 1998) and it only exists through actions, such as in the way that actions modify other actions within the relationships of groups or individuals. Power makes certain actions and distinctions possible. At the same time, power is the effect of these actions and distinctions. Importantly, these relations are both intentional and non-subjective. This means that power is always exercised with an aim and objective. However, this is not the result of a choice made by any individual or group. Rather, this aim and objective is the result of a calculated strategy that coordinates power, drawing on support from elsewhere, and that forms a perfectly clear and comprehensive logic system (Foucault, 1998).
Through power relations, subjectivity emerges. Power defines who can speak, about what and with what authority. Thus, a discourse makes available a certain field of possible subject positions to uptake, including the position as teacher, student, citizen and other positions. Thus, subjectivity is not pre-defined, nor does it have any essence. Rather, subjectivity (here the citizen) emerges through discourse, i.e. through the way citizens are spoken about. In other words, this is a decentred notion of subjectivity, and it is enmeshed in power relations, which make these subjectivities possible (Foucault, 1998; Fejes & Nicoll, 2015).
Citizenship discourses are a vehicle for the exercise of power in societies, for shaping societies and subjectivities. Thus, where a student describes citizenship, power is exercised through the mobilisation of knowledge and its internalisation in the constitution of the subject. The exercise of power produces subjects choosing to act through the field of possible responses, opened up through specific discourses of citizenship. In this light, citizenship can be seen as having no pre-given meaning or essence. Thus, citizenship could be analysed as an on-going formation of citizens as subjects, i.e. citizens are constantly in the making. As Barbara Cruikshank (1999, p. 3) concludes: âCitizens are not born, they are madeâ. These processes of citizen formation are not one-directional, directed from the top down, where citizens, the âobjectsâ of governing, are âpassiveâ (Foucault, 1991). Rather these processes could be understood as complex power relations wherein citizens are shaped into citizen-subjects.
In line with this perspective, it is crucial to further analyse the discourses defining how citizens should appear, behave and think in order to be âgood citizensâ. In the on-going formation of citizens as particular kinds of subjects, citizen-subjects are formed in a continuum between the normal (i.e. the ideal citizen) and the deviant others (i.e. those lacking the virtues and competences ascribed to the ideal citizen). This is thus a question of the drawing of boundaries making inclusion and exclusion possible. Here, inclusion and exclusion are not a matter of either or, either included or excluded â rather, inclusion and exclusion are seen as presupposing one another. Citizens may be formally included in the societal community in the sense of being granted the formal rights of citizens, but at the same time, they may be in the position of not really being able to access or substantially exercise these rights. Thus, when analysing the formation of citizens, it is crucial to further analyse the drawing of boundaries and the relations between inclusion and exclusion, i.e. the constructions of the norm as well as the deviant.
The question of normalisation today takes place within a wider rationality of governing, i.e. a rationality of how government should be conducted, with what goal, through what means and targeting whom. Foucault (2007) referred to this as governmentality and in his writing, among other things, he elaborated on how governing through history has changed. Of specific interest in his work was how neoliberalism emerged as a way to conceptualise a different way of how governing should be conducted. On the basis of Foucaultâs conception of governing, Nikolas Rose (1999) has described the contemporary society as an âadvanced liberal societyâ, in which the ideal citizen is characterised as free, independent and responsible. Within such a rationality of governing, the citizen becomes both the governor and the governed, which is referred to by Foucault (2007) as âthe conduct of conductâ. With a neoliberal governmentality, freedom becomes both the prerequisite and the effect of governing. Rather than a situation in which the King has control of his territory, with the authority to decide about the life and death of his subjects, today, governing operates through individualsâ freedom to act and to make choices. Thus, citizens are positioned in their capacity to choose, and when a choice is made, the citizen comes into being as free â and as responsible for the choices made. So, even though ...
