ABSTRACT
This chapter uses Foucault's notion of culture of self to link concepts of subjectivity and youth unemployment. The purpose of the chapter is to demonstrate how a Foucauldian understanding of self provides a useful means for understanding the shift in approaches to youth unemployment especially in a world dominated by the global financial crisis and austerity politics. The chapter examines the shifting sociological notion of self before providing a reading of Foucault and the culture of self and the final section points to a Foucauldian interpretation of the relationship between neoliberalism and youth unemployment. Part of the international creed of neoliberalism has been to critique big government, especially the so-called welfare state, by attacking welfare dependents, highlighting benefit fraud and tightening up eligibility criteria. At the same time neoliberalism was committed to a form of globalization advertised in terms of 'free trade' and the free flow of capital across national borders.
