Search

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Kurzfassung: With their donation appeals aid organisations procure a polarised worldview of the self and other into our everyday lives and feed on discourses of "development" and "neediness". This study investigates how the discourse of "development" is embedded in the subjectivities of "development" professionals. By approaching the topic from a governmentality perspective, the paper illustrates how "development" is (re-)produced through internalised Western values and powerful mechanisms of self-conduct. Meanwhile, this form of self-conduct, which is related to a "good cause", also gives rise to doubts regarding the work, as well as fragmentations and shifts of identity. On the one hand, the paper outlines various coping strategies used by development professionals to maintain a coherent narrative about the self. On the other hand, it also shows how doubts and fragmentations of identity can generate a critical distance to "development" practice, providing a space for resistant and transformative practice in the sense of Foucauldian counter-conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Der aktuelle Trend zu alternativen Formen der Nahrungsmittelproduktion und Ernährung wird gerahmt von Diskursen über Postwachstum und Nachhaltigkeit, die Alternativen zum hegemonialen Wachstumsparadigma fordern und die gegenwärtige Ordnung zunehmend infrage stellen. Gleichzeitig appellieren sie an das Gewissen einzelner Subjekte und stellen individuelle (Konsum-)Entscheidungen in den größeren Zusammenhang sozial-ökologischer Verantwortungsdiskurse. An dieser Stelle setzt dieser konzeptionelle Aufsatz an: Er argumentiert, dass die Perspektive der Gouvernementalität und das Konzept dercontre-conduite sinnvolle Analysewerkzeuge für dieses komplexe Zusammenspiel aus Verantwortungsdiskursen und Subjektivierungsprozessen bieten und dass auch widerständige Praktiken Machteffekten und Formen der Selbst- und Fremdführung unterliegen. The recent trend towards alternative food production and dietary practices is framed by discourses on degrowth and sustainability, which call for alternatives to the hegemonic growth paradigm and increasingly question the present order. At the same time, they appeal to the conscience of individual subjects and place individual (consumer) choices into the broader context of socio-ecological discourses of responsibility. Starting from this observation, the paper investigates governmentality and the concept of counter-conduct as promising analytical tools. By re-tracing the complex interplay of discourses of responsibility and processes of subjectivation, even practices of resistance are shown to always remain embedded in modes of domination and self-conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]