LLL as an intellectual technology of governmentality

Today's summary is from Edwards' chapter in the same book edited by Kuhn et al.
It is entitled "Intellectual Technologies in the Constitution of Learning Societies"

Edwards draws on the concept of governmentality (Foucault, 1991) and suggests that research and policy in LLL serve as technologies of governance. 
 In brief, governmentality is a way of directing the actions of a population at a distance.  Governmentality will enact different technologies/strategies in order to create citizens which are best suited to policy.  In this case, Edwards argues that policy and research around LLL are directed at constituting a population which will further the goals of global competitiveness in a knowledge-based economy. 


One point that Edwards makes is that in the EU's research projects, "...social and economic conditions are laid at the door of education and training as a first port of call..." (p. 75).  He says that these project over-emphasise the role of education, specifically qualifications, in these matters.  He further claims that education policy is not the focus, but rather LEARNING policy.  The difference is that solutions are to be found in changing not the structures or provisions but in changing the learner him- or herself.  It positions itself to mobilize learners to respond to and to change the social and economic conditions in which they live and work.  Citing Griffin (2002), he positions this as an attack on the welfare state and points out that even if access is increased to educational opportunities, it may not necessarily be widened to include those who have been marginalized by existing systems of provision.

 Research positions the person as a "...subject that is drawn upon to do research and the subject who is positioned to be worked upon and through by policy” (p. 76).  People are constituted primarily as learners, and as morally culpable to be autonomous, flexible, mobile and flexible in the service of national or regional (economic) interests.  This is signified in pedagogies to increase these desired features of individuals. 

In this way, Edwards argues that LLL policy and research are intellectual technologies of governance for ordering the social, economic and political reality. Research doesn't only represent social phenomena, it orders and commands it; it is "...a form of social action" (p. 77) itself.  It constitutes and assumes populations, their characteristics, and the problems associated with those populations.  Unemployed youth, the low-skilled, the older worker, all become subjects of examination and objects for re-modeling under an economic imperative.  They are disembodied and disembedded in their own contexts and identities.

It is this 'symbolic work' of LLL research that needs to be questioned, according to Edwards.   Much of the research is situated within the fields of economics, psychology, sociology and political sciences and takes an unreflexive stance on its own position and assumptions.  Without reflexivity, the subjectivities enacted and the ordering of social phenomena enacted may be problematic. 

Edwards proposes a Darwinian logic associated with the technologies of governance in LLL. The survival of the most fit/competitive individual and state will be based on characteristics of the workers.  He quotes Rose: "...competitiveness [have] been 'recoded, at least in part, in terms of  the psychological, dispositions and aspirational capacities of those that make up the labour force…”( p. 84).  This does not necessarily advance the individual, but rather allows him or her to maintain their position in the social order with a "...life of ceaseless job seeking:  Life has now become a continuous economic capitalisation of the self”  (p. 84).

I would add that there is an assumption that since nations, regions and organizations are interested in becoming competitive and function in a competitive economic market with market mentality, individuals should also be competitive in their jobs and approach that competition through a market-modeled economic rationality. Survival and prosperity for economically competitive industries is being subsumed as survival and prosperity for individuals who must too compete as market commodities. Not only is education being commoditized, but individuals are. Whereas one might accept the demise of industries, or even states that do not have the resources to be competitive in an economic global market, should we accept the demise of individuals who are unable to compete as labour commodities?  Are they secondary citizens undeserving of social goods?