Brugerinddragelse og stemning i arbejdet med unge og rusmidler: Socialt arbejde som ledelse af selvledelse

This article is a written version of the lecture I gave defending the ph.d. thesis “User-driven Standards and Affective Subjectification”. The article builds upon ethnographic research of two municipal institutions that work with youth with a (problematic) use of substances, inspired by narrative, systemic and solution focused forms of therapy. This means that they try to handle challenges about motivation and participation, by avoiding to stigmatize the users and including their perspective. The central question is how welfare state institutions can be developed and organized in ways so that they lead, educate, and govern citizens so they become able to govern themselves and develop their own lives. The most important contributions are to develop theoretical concepts and analyses of how user perspectives, particular configuration of spaces and affective phenomena such as mood, atmosphere, energy, and intensity, are crucial to produce change. This article contributes to a development of governmentality studies, social work, systemic, narrative, and solution focused therapeutic methods, and to a broader understanding of how to organize the welfare state’s institutions so they are able to facilitate the development of productive forms of self-governance.Denne artikel er en skriftlig version af min ph.d.-forsvarstale for afhandlingen “Brugerdrevne standarder og affektiv subjektivering – en undersøgelse af styringsstrategier i pædagogisk og socialt arbejde”. Artiklen analyserer, hvordan man i to kommunale institutioner arbejder med unge rusmiddelbrugere, inspireret af narrative, systemiske og løsningsorienterede terapiformer. En væsentlig pointe i disse indsatser, er at undgå et individualiserende og stigmatiserende fokus på problemer og rusmidler og i stedet arbejde helhedsorienteret og alment udviklende. Den almene problemstilling der analyseres, handler om, hvordan vi i socialt arbejde og andre indsatser, kan påvirke borgere, så de både kommer fri af deres aktuelle vanskeligheder og opnår en mere almen kompetence til at lede sig selv og håndtere deres liv og de udfordringer, de møder. Artiklen viser, hvordan brugerinddragelse og en løbende udvikling af fagligheden, er afgørende for at udvikle brugernes selvledelse og overskride vanskeligheder i forhold til motivation, frivillighed og deltagelse. Den analytiske tilgang er governmentality studies, der kombineres med metodologiske tilgange fra praksisforskning med henblik på, at bidrage til at udvikle og kvalificere det sociale arbejde.Et særligt relevant forskningsmæssigt og praktisk bidrag udgøres af de analyser og teoretiske forståelser af, hvordan affektive fænomener som stemning, atmosfære og energi, er afgørende for at skabe forandring. Artiklen opsummerer, hvordan afhandlingen ‘brugerdrevne standarder og affektiv sub- jektivering’ bidrager til en udvikling af governmentality studies, socialt arbejde, systemiske, narrative og løsningsorienterede terapiformer, samt til en bredere forståelse af organisering og ledelse af selvledelse i velfærdsstatens institutioner

Affirmativ kritik: Håb og begejstring, uhygge og vrede

I denne rundbordssamtale, diskuterer vi forskellige former for kritik, historisk og aktuelt. Vi diskuterer, hvordan kritik er blevet noget uomgængeligt og allestedsnærværende, og hvilken problemer- og udfordringer det stiller til en kritisk praksis i dag. Vi skitserer to arketypiske kritikformer, som vi benævner som negativ og affirmativ kritik. Den negative kritik kan karakteriseres ved at afsløre, afdække og kritisere det bestående. Denne kritikform er væsentlig og afgørende både i samfundet og akademisk praksis. Vi diskuterer, hvordan en sådan negativ kritik dog også har sine begrænsninger. I det den ikke altid bidrager til at skabe forandring, men tværtimod kan skabe håbløshed, frustration og apati. Vi argumenterer for, at vi må udvide vores kritiske praksis og supplere med mere affirmative former for kritik. Affektive kritikformer, virker ikke ved at skrælle noget af, men i højere grad ved at lægge til. Det handler om at multiplicere, potentialisere, udfolde det virtuelle og bekræfte noget, der endnu er i tilblivelse. På den måde producerer de forskellige kritikformer også affektive fænomener som håb, begejstring, uhygge og vrede, ligesom kritikken selv kan udspringer af disse. En grundpointe er, at disse kritikformer ikke er modsætninger, men supplerer hinanden og at vi med dem kan udvide vores kritiske redskaber og måder at forstå og forandre verden på. Artiklen argumenterer ved at vise hvordan forskellige typer af kritik kan udfoldes i forhold til empiriske eksempler fra samfundsdebatter og forskningen, og diskuterer de forskellige opfattelser af kritik op mod centrale filosoffer, teoretikere og aktivister.In this roundtable conversation, Mads Bank, Sverre Raffnsøe and Dorthe Staunaes, discuss different historical and contemporary forms of critique. We discuss how critique in our age has become ubiquitous and which challenges and problems this raises. We outline two archetypical forms of critique, which we term negative and affirmative critique. The negative or paranoid critique is characterized by being preoccupied with a critique of what is present, exposing what is beneath, debunking existing truths, regimes of knowledge and relations of power. This form of critique is essential and necessary but has limitations, as it in many instances do not lead to change and subjects can then experience frustration, hopelessness, and apathy. We argue that this points to the need to supplement our critical practices, with more affirmative forms of critique. Affirmative forms of critique do not subtract, debunk or expose, but work by adding or potentializing. Affirmative critique seeks to unfold the virtuality of its subject matter and confirm something that could be or are in the process of becoming. Negative and affective forms of critiques are not oppositional or mutually excluding, but different ways of engaging with problems and the world. In this roundtable, we discuss how different philosophers, social theorists and activists conceptualize and tune affirmative forms of critique differently; how affects such as hope, enthusiasm, unease and anger are crucially impulses intertwined with the critique; and how we in relation to precarious lives and practices have engaged in critical pedagogies with a purpose going beyond criticism

Being and Becoming among Young People Revealed through the Experience of COVID-19

The lockdown of society arising out of COVID-19 can be viewed as a microscope exposing the existential conditions and challenges of young people’s lives and their manner of dealing with crises. This study employs a qualitative research methodology using semi-structured interviews of 19 young people, aged 16–17 years, after the second COVID-19 lockdown in Denmark, March 2021. An analytical strategy was applied using reflexive methodology taking concepts from Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber, and Martin Heidegger to interpret the participants’ experiences of existential themes important to them, such as identity. Drawing on Kierkegaard’s idea of different “interpretive spheres” of life, we suggest that crisis revealed a disruption of the young peoples’ performance-oriented approach to life that made it possible to reflect and relate to themselves through aesthetic, ethical and self-transcending spheres. We suggest that the relationship to the other—as an ethical obligation, as an affective Being-with, and as something bigger than themselves—is crucial to the ways in which young people handle and relate to existential challenges and the experience of being and becoming themselves. The findings contribute to education and well-being, pointing out mental challenges among young people and stressing an existential focus as a priority in educational practice

A Kantian approach to sustainable development indicators for climate change

Agenda 21 required countries to develop and regularly update a national set of indicators for sustainable development. Several countries now have such sets also including separate indicators for climate change. Some of these indicators typically report global concentration of green house gases in the atmosphere or time series for global temperatures. While such indicators may give the public information about the state of the global climate, they do not provide a benchmark which makes it possible for the public to evaluate the climate policy of their government. With Kantian ethics as our point of departure, we propose a benchmark for national climate policy. The benchmark is that each nation state should act as if a global treaty on climate change were in place. This would require each nation state to carry out all green house gas mitigation projects below a certain cost. Furthermore, it would require each nation to keep their national green house gas emissions including acquisitions of emission permits from other countries within a certain limit. Both measures are relatively easy to track and can thus serve as indicators