ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to problematize contemporary thought about knowledge and knowledge production by comparing discursive practices in the fields of teacher education, public health and criminal justice. Knowledge and knowledge organization cannot be thought of without considering the notion of governance. Governance takes place in relation to the ways in which we develop and organize knowledge about things and phenomena that are to be governed, and knowledge is not intelligible without an understanding of how it is situated in the present as embedded in historical conditions. The subject is continuously (re)constructed as an object that is known, through the discursive practices of education, public health and criminal justice systems. Thus, from this point of view, knowledge does not represent reality, but has instead a productive role in shaping and configuring reality. Knowledge can be regarded as a practice of governance taking place in various social areas, and thus a knowledge society is a governing society (cf. Olsson et al. 2006). With the increasing importance of knowledge in our actions there is good reason to explore and pay attention to the effects and power of the production of knowledge itself. It is said that we live in a knowledge society and that as subjects we are to be treated as lifelong learning citizens. And here the idea of the ‘knowledge society’ is characterized as a changing pattern in the governing of the Swedish welfare state, in which the school, education, public health and criminal justice are included.
