Genealogies of reflexivity: register formations and the making of affective workers

How has the ability to express reflexivity, including regulating affect, come to be part of the bundled self that workers are required to be? This paper offers a rigorous genealogical analysis of the multiple histories of knowledge and power that have informed the emergence and shaping of ‘reflexive registers,’ or socially typified ways of speaking and reflecting about oneself that stand for morally marked models of selfhood. It takes as a starting-point programs documented in my ethnography of employability programs in London, UK where workers of all sorts are asked to learn to examine their personalities and to express their feelings. It then draws on original historiographical and ethnographic data that allows documentation of the logics and circumstances informing the emergence and development of reflexivity as a resource for employability. It argues for an interdisciplinary understanding of reflexivity and its communicability that theorises the workers as products of history, capital, and affect

Reflexiones latinoamericanas en bioética

La reflexión sobre bioética está enraizada en la situación actual. Los países desarrollados comienzan el tercer milenio en condiciones de bienestar generalizadas, superiores a las que tenían hace treinta años, pero la calidad de vida requiere algo distinto del simple crecimiento, la situación personal se ha deteriorado. Los países pobres están dispuestos a sacrificar lo que añoran los países desarrollados por disfrutar del crecimiento mecanicista. La producción requiere cada día menos personas de las que hoy están ocupadas. La generación de desechos aumenta. Los hombres encuentran dificultades para relacionarse. Por ello, la situación presente es vista como un desafío que supera a los retos tradicionales, donde no sólo los principios clásicos que rigen la bioética necesitan ser pensados.En este momento de desequilibrio social, cuando la corrupción y la impunidad son males sociales que necesitan ser extinguidos, parece que toda la sociedad habla de ética. El problema no radica en la frecuencia con la que se exige ética, rama de la filosofía, sino en la situación por la que –de acuerdo con lo que decía Jaspers al respecto de la filosofía– todos se sienten competentes para hablar del tema, parecería que la sola condición humana es suficiente para hacerlos capaces. Así, se escuchan todo tipo de argumentos, la mayoría insostenibles, pero no todos los discursos son vacíos; este libro es un ejemplo de la actitud opuesta, quienes lo escriben se han dedicado a la investigación sobre el tema. Los especialistas en bioética aquí recogidos tienen una larga trayectoria dentro de la misma. En el curso de sus vidas profesionales y personales han encontrado algunas explicaciones acerca del ejercicio de la práctica del cuidado de la salud y han tenido claro que la ética toma en cuenta elementos del deber ser. Aunque en dicha práctica la escucha del inconsciente y la manifestación del deseo ofrecen una apertura distinta hacia el conocimiento del ser humano

The governmentality of migration: Intercultural communication and the politics of (dis)placement in Southern Europe

The European Union and the Italian state have currently implemented a state infrastructure enabling to govern the migration flows towards Europe. This infrastructure has involved the formation of an ensemble of institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections that raise the efficiency of migrants' reception, integration or expulsion. Expertise on intercultural communication has been celebrated as a key resource of this infrastructure. In this article, I discuss the status of expertise on intercultural communication within an infrastructure managing migration in Italy. I focus on the circumstances by which expertise on intercultural communication has emerged as a crucial technology of this infrastructure and on ways this knowledge contributes to the regulation of migrants' access to the life projects migration stands for

Le plurilinguisme suisse à l’ère du capitalisme tardif : Investissement promotionnel sur un capital national

Cet article analyse les logiques régissant la valorisation par l’État de la diversité linguistique suisse sous des conditions de capitalisme tardif. Si les gouvernements helvétiques ont historiquement investi dans le plurilinguisme national, aujourd’hui la Suisse continue à miser sur le plurilinguisme afin de maintenir la position privilégiée occupée par son économie sur les marchés mondiaux. Pour pouvoir mettre à profit ce capital historique, l’État suisse adapte cependant l’argument du plurilinguisme aux marchés-cibles, ce qui aboutit à une hiérarchisation des formes de « diversité » en Suisse. Afin d’expliquer le rôle de la diversité dans les politiques économiques de la Suisse contemporaine, de comprendre quelle forme de diversité est considérée comme ayant une valeur ajoutée, et enfin de saisir les intérêts qui influencent la valeur attribuée à la diversité, j’analyse les pratiques promotionnelles menées par l’État suisse dans le cadre d’un séminaire promotionnel organisé en Allemagne visant à attirer des entrepreneurs et des capitaux allemands sur le territoire suisse. L’analyse se concentre particulièrement sur le rôle du plurilinguisme comme élément clé dans la stratégie de marketing international de la Suisse et sur l’adaptation stratégique de cet argument promotionnel aux publics ciblés.This article analyzes the logics governing the Swiss state’s valorization of Swiss linguistic diversity under conditions of late capitalism. If Helvetic governments have historically invested in national multilingualism, contemporary Switzerland continues to focus on multilingualism to maintain the privileged position occupied by its economy on global markets. However, in order to be able to capitalize on this historical capital, the Swiss state adapts the argument of multilingualism to the markets it addresses, which leads to a hierarchization of the forms of « diversity » in Switzerland. In order to explain the role of diversity in the context of the current economic policies and activities of the Swiss state, to understand which form of diversity is considered as a source of added value, and finally to understand the interests influencing the value attributed to diversity, I analyze the promotional practices conducted by the Swiss state in Germany, aiming to attract German entrepreneurs and capitals to Switzerland. I particularly focus on the role of multilingualism as a key feature of the international marketing strategy of Switzerland and highlight the strategic adaptation of that argument to the targeted publics.Este artículo analiza la lógica que gobierna la valorización por parte del estado suizo de la diversidad lingüística suiza bajo las condiciones del capitalismo tardío. Si los gobiernos helvéticos han invertido históricamente en el multilingüismo nacional, la Suiza contemporánea continúa centrándose en el multilingüismo para mantener la posición privilegiada que ocupa su economía en los mercados globales. Sin embargo, para poder capitalizar este capital histórico, el estado suizo adapta el argumento del multilingüismo a los mercados a los cuales se dirige, lo que conduce a una jerarquización de las formas de « diversidad » en Suiza. Para explicar el papel que desempeña la diversidad en el contexto de las actuales políticas y actividades económicas del estado suizo, para comprender qué forma de diversidad se considera como una fuente de valor añadido, y por último para entender los intereses que influyen el valor que se atribuye a la diversidad, analizo las prácticas promocionales llevadas a cabo por el estado suizo en Alemania, con el objetivo de atraer empresarios y capitales a Suiza. Más concretamente, me centro en el papel del multilingüismo como característica clave de la estrategia de marketing internacional de Suiza y pongo de relieve la adaptación estratégica de este argumento a los públicos meta

Branding the nation Swiss multilingualism and the promotional capitalization on national history under late capitalism

This paper discusses how Switzerland is branded by the Swiss state under late capitalism. Drawing on discursive data collected in the framework of a research project investigating the international promotion of Switzerland, I particularly focus on how multilingualism and cultural diversity are constructed by the Swiss government as a capital belonging to Switzerland and its history and on how and why this imagined historical capital is reframed in promotional terms. In doing so, I question the function of the historicity of Swiss multilingualism and cultural diversity in nation branding practices and analyze the logics causing specific tokens of multilingualism and cultural diversity to emerge as desirable promotional features. Finally, I research how the promotional investment in Swiss multilingualism and cultural diversity affects the status and value of its historical capital and how this has consequences for what can be said (or not) about Switzerland and its history. The final version of this research has been published in Pragmatics and Society. © 2016 John Benjamins Publishin

Nation Brands and the Politics of Difference

This article documents the debates surrounding the policing of the brand “Switzerland.” It demonstrates that debating nation brands—particularly within the framework of a state policy of economic expansion—seems to be about who gets to produce and consume the desires that nations are imagined to stand for as much as about who gets to capitalize on the imagined value that these nations seem to have in specific markets. I also argue that if brands effectively seem to be precious sources of added value that can be exchanged with other forms of capital, not everybody is considered to have equal access to this capital. Because of their capability to produce and naturalize hierarchies between commodities, nation brands—and the entire institutional apparatus within which they are anchored and regulated—have also to be understood as key technologies of a state infrastructure governing the distribution of capital under current capitalistic conditions

On the Social Life of a City Anthem : Semiotic Objects, Ideologies of Belonging and the Reproduction of Sociocultural Difference

This article takes a closer look at the role of semiotic objects such as texts, monuments, songs, and flags in the definition of both sociocultural boundaries and legitimation of the resulting relations of difference. The focus is a specific anthem, Z'Basel an mym Rhy [In Basel on my Rhine], which is the official anthem of Basel, a city in northwest Switzerland. In line with Appadurai's [1996. The Social Life of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] claim in favor of a complex analysis of an object's social life, this article is a historiographical investigation of the circulation of this semiotic object across time and space – from the moment of its conception as a poem in 1806, to the present day. The analysis centers on how this specific semiotic object has been re-appropriated and transformed continuously, throughout its social life, by new actors, in new contexts, and for new purposes. Indeed, from its origin as a romantic ode for intimate private consumption, this text gradually emerged as an object of cultural consumption on a larger scale, taking on the role of an instrument of pride and power, and becoming a tool to legitimize social structuration. The final version of this research has been published in Social Semiotics. © 2015 Taylor & Franci