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This article focuses on the concept of pastoral power as presented by Fr Valentine Sventzitsky in his text “Six Readings on the Sacrament of Penance in its History”, which is significant for contemporary Russian Orthodoxy. Opposing the practice of general confession in the 1920s, he contrasts it with private confession, basing his arguments on pre-revolutionary studies of penitential practices and priesthood. At the same time, in Sventzitsky’s text, academic theses undergo a significant transformation in connection with his historiosophic and religious-philosophical ideas. First of all, he uses in this context the theory of the gradual unfolding of the Church's self-consciousness in history and projects this theory onto the theological reflection on the development of the forms of the Sacraments. In the same vein, in relation to ecclesiastical practices, he applies the theory of the historical differentiation in the Church of good and evil. In this context we analyze Sventzitsky's ideas about the secularization of the Church, to which he contrasts the active spiritualization of all life and formulates this call in the idea of a monastery in the world. The article shows what place the priest has in the formation of the monastery in the world. Against this background, the analysis of representations of pastoral power both in the “Readings” and in other texts by Sventzitsky, and correlating them with the sources on which he relies, allows us to highlight his thesis about the transformation of this type of power in history. The author of the Readings identifies three characteristic periods in which pastoral power changed from its public dimension in the ancient Church, communal — in Byzantine monasteries and Russian parish churches, and, finally, personal-psychological — in the context of the Soviet period. These three types of pastoral power are analyzed by Sventzitsky in connection with the transformation in historical perspective of the forms of confession, the continuity of the “power of the keys” in the Church, and the actualization of obedience in church life. From this perspective, Sventzitsky offers a theological justification for the established practice of confession, which he constructs as a bricolage of Russian academic theology and philosophy.

Young people in the Nordic countries have many options and face obligations to participate in career guidance and counselling (guidance). In Finland, young people are subjected to multiple institutionalized guidance practices especially in educational transition phases. Guidance has various objectives as a public policy, thereby setting a framework for guidance professionals too. By using Foucault's conceptualization on "'pastoral' power", we studied how guidance professionals ('shepherds') guide young people ('the flock') towards 'wellbeing'. Our aim was to analyse how pastoral power is manifested in guidance practices by asking what governmental discourses the guidance professionals refer to when talking about guidance and how these discourses are practiced in guidance. Our data comprise Finnish guidance professionals' interviews (n = 15). As a result, dominant governmental discourses of employability, economic efficiency and lifelong learning were identified. Guidance involved pastoral power and demanded employability and educability for the young. Guidance professionals have a crucial role in implementing governmental discourses into guidance practices. These practices create a narrow perspective for young people and guidance professionals, who are simultaneously the mediators and targets of governmental power.

There is a global movement of education reform, informed by a neoliberal agenda, emphasising continuous improvement and accountability through performance measurements, surveillance and monitoring. This puts local school actors under constant gaze and endless pressure to perform. This article uses a Swedish state-initiated school improvement programme, Co-operation for the Best School Possible (CBS), to investigate how power is exercised within the programme and to discuss possible implications for the local actors. A theoretical model based on Foucault’s power modes of sovereign, disciplinary and pastoral power as well as governmentality is used. Empirically, the article builds on a case study from a municipality participating in CBS. The analysis takes impression of Jackson and Mazzei’s “thinking with theory”. The CBS programme illustrates the widespread and multifaceted nature of power in educational governance, prompting local actors to internalise norms, self-regulate, and continuously evaluate their practices. This study highlights the importance of understanding the interplay of different power modes in shaping educational practices and the professional lives of local school actors. This article has contributed to questioning the common sensical, and it has made the exercises of power recognisable through the use of Foucault’s concepts.

Contemporary thinkers studying biopolitics find little interest in Foucault's "vague sketch of the pastorate". Described by Foucault as an inherently "benevolent" "power of care", the concept seems inadequate to describe the deadly forms of carelessness that characterize the current government of life. Sovereign power, as a power of decision over life and death that works by distinguishing populations whose lives are worth affirming from social groups whose lives are not, therefore takes precedence in the examination of the governmental connection between care, violence, and biopolitics. Yet, what we might call the "sovereign turn" in the field of Foucault studies is not without a significant drawback. The focus on the logic of exclusion through which governments "care about" specific groups and "take care of" them, while actively producing subjects that cannot or must not be cared for, often overshadows the analysis of how care is currently given and received. More often than not, the post-Foucauldian critique of governmental concern for life neglects the long-standing feminist critique of how support for life, in the form of care work, has historically been organized along lines of gender, race, and class. In contrast, this article argues that delving into the relationship between pastoral power and governmentality enables the development of a framework that encompass both these critiques, shedding new light on the mechanisms at play in the current "crisis of care". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Church, as an institution, has pioneered ground-breaking interventions, although some of these interventions were also a vehicle for imperial colonisation. Through its missionary activities, the Church has exercised such a form of power over its flock. This article intends to analyse the extent of the knowledge that pastors in Thulamela Municipality, Limpopo Province, have concerning HIV/AIDS and the prejudices associated with the illness. The article applies a qualitative approach in ascertaining the extent of such knowledge as well as the pastoral approaches utilised. In this qualitative phenomenological study, the authors explored the knowledge of these pastors regarding HIV/AIDS. A semi-structured interview guide was used to direct the collection of data. Following thematic analysis, the knowledge of pastors regarding HIV/AIDS emerged as the theme of the study. The findings revealed that difficulties relating to providing pastoral care to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH) were exacerbated by a lack of knowledge and limited training offered to pastors. The article will further argue that there is a need for a partnership between the churches and public health services. Contribution: This article strives to expose biblical discourse exhibited by pastors because of a lack of theological formation and to suggest a way forward in collaborating the church as a religious institution and public health institution for combating HIV/AIDS.

This paper explores the governance practices that external providers of school wellbeing programs employ in their contribution to the subjectification function of education. In neoliberal times where this 'game' of subjectification has become more open, governmentality scholars have been challenged to provide more robust insight into how discourses permeate individual subjectivities. In response, we draw on recent theorising of Foucault's pastoral power concept and a resulting analytic framework of four interlinked practices to explore external providers' endeavours to 'shepherd' students, teachers and parents in the practices and responsibilities of personal wellbeing. Our data revealed that discourse tension and conflict emerges within school communities' increasingly 'messy' pastoral terrain. In conclusion, we suggest that more empirical and theoretical insight into actors' resistance and agency within the pastoral power landscape of schools offers a vital contribution to our understanding of external providers' influence on education policy and enactment.

Abstract The architecture of security is often thought of in terms of situational crime prevention and defensible space. In this article, we argue that the emergence of smart cities and smart technology compel a broader conceptualisation of the design of security, which has the potential to transform the governance of our urban landscape. Drawing on the case of the city of Eindhoven’s “De-escalate” project—in which sound, smell and lighting programming combined with data analysis is used to reduce violence and aggression in the inner-city entertainment area—we show that the securitisation of urban space can also be pursued by positive triggers for behaviour. The case allows us to rethink the architecture of security in terms of pastoral power—Foucault’s notion of governing individuals and populations through care and protection. In sharp contrast with more hostile forms of situational crime prevention and defensible space, which seek to “design out” unwanted behaviour by closing off spaces, pastoral architecture is inclusive and provides “scripts” for desirable behaviour in public space. Moreover, this architecture is incorporated and designed into the existing built environment, operates through psychological triggers rather than physical ones, and is principally developed by private companies rather than the state.

Home-school relations, home learning and parental engagement are prominent educational policy issues, constituting one aspect of a wider parenting support agenda that has suffused the landscape of social policy over the last two decades. This article examines a parenting support initiative distinctive for its use of link workers in mobilising ‘hard to reach’ parents to engage more effectively with their children’s education. Drawing on qualitative data gathered during the evaluation of the initiative, the article frames link worker–parent interactions as a form of everyday government and pastoral power. Link workers constitute a new educational pastorate; through friendship, care and control they exercise pastoral power over parents. Building on recent research into the role of ‘pastors’ in producing neoliberal subjectivities within the National Health Service, the article foregrounds their efforts to foster responsible, self-disciplined agency in parents. Link workers, it is argued, contribute to a responsibilisation and pedagogicalisation of the family, which has produced new figures of mothering/parenting, reconfigured the meaning of the home and extended the scope of state intervention into family life.

Informed by the work of the work of Michel Foucault, Ian Hunter, and Ansgar Allen, this paper argues that I/MLEs are not the creation of a "modern" or "innovative" learning environment but rather the reclamation of an educational technique that was pioneered en masse almost two centuries ago (and based on practices many centuries older than that), where established pastoral methods were key to shaping particularly formed educated subjects. Drawing on work produced by the OECD, as well as UK and NZ education policies and school building design guidance, this argument couches two claims, the first of which is that whether or not education systems and school buildings are conforming to I/MLE models, the ubiquity of ideologically narrow conceptions of the learning subject are enforced regardless, through subtle or unsubtle means. However, the second claim is that, despite their overarching and unsurprising ideological homogeneity with other more outcome oriented forms of schooling, I/MLEs have the potential to offer a much more substantial formative experience than other schooling systems due to their implicit recovery of the traditional pastoral aspect of education.

Young people in the Nordic countries have many options and face obligations to participate in career guidance and counselling (guidance). In Finland, young people are subjected to multiple institutionalized guidance practices especially in educational transition phases. Guidance has various objectives as a public policy, thereby setting a framework for guidance professionals too. By using Foucault's conceptualization on 'pastoral' power, we studied how guidance professionals ('shepherds') guide young people ('the flock') towards 'wellbeing'. Our aim was to analyse how pastoral power is manifested in guidance practices by asking what governmental discourses the guidance professionals refer to when talking about guidance and how these discourses are practiced in guidance. Our data comprise Finnish guidance professionals' interviews (n = 15). As a result, dominant governmental discourses of employability, economic efficiency and lifelong learning were identified. Guidance involved pastoral power and demanded employability and educability for the young. Guidance professionals have a crucial role in implementing governmental discourses into guidance practices. These practices create a narrow perspective for young people and guidance professionals, who are simultaneously the mediators and targets of governmental power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]