Ray Griffin
South East Technological University, Business, Faculty Member
Drawing on the Weberian spirit, our key problem is trying to understand the irrational rationality of Active Labour Market Policies adopted across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, despite their limited... more
Drawing on the Weberian spirit, our key problem is trying to understand the irrational rationality of Active Labour Market Policies adopted across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, despite their limited utility. Rather than explaining these as inefficient policy formation or reflecting neo-liberal ideology, we suggest that the experience and governmentality of welfare is historically informed by the idea of purgatory. Drawing from the genealogical impulse in Weber, Foucault and Agamben, and adapting Weber’s concept of ‘world-images’, we suggest that the history of welfare, from workhouses to Active Labour Market Policies, is animated by the purgatorial logic of judging, punishing and purifying individuals. This resonance is clearest in the interpretation that jobseekers give to the time they spend unemployed, but also in political speeches, policy making and the creation of welfare systems. Counter-intuitively, this analysis is drawn from Ireland, a latecomer to Active Labour Market Policies, where the imposition of an increasedly purgatorial conception of welfare is clearly visible.
Research Interests:
Although they are the recipients of welfare we argue that the unemployed are pathologized and scapegoated by the ungenerous nature of this gift. The suffering of the unemployed is explored here as emerging not from the lack of economic,... more
Although they are the recipients of welfare we argue that the unemployed are pathologized and scapegoated by the ungenerous nature of this gift. The suffering of the unemployed is explored here as emerging not from the lack of economic, psychological, and social goods, but from how gift-relations are imbued with power-relations, particularly as generated in activation policies currently spreading through the OECD. Inspired by theoretical consideration of Mauss, Girard, and others, we aspire to offer an imaginative rethinking of unemployment, moving beyond the simple notion that it is just a lack of work, to positioning unemployment as a foundational axis of punishment which is constitutive for modern society. In this way, the unemployed exist as imaginary scapegoats for political legitimization and as surplus labour which allows capitalism to function. Illustrative empirical data are drawn from interviews and media reportage in Ireland, where the switch to activation policies was made swiftly and dramatically since 2012.
