ABSTRACT

JOE PAINTER Introduction Unlike many of the other contributions to this collection, this chapter draws its immediate inspiration not from Pierre Bourdieu and the concept of habitus, but from the notion of ‘governmentality’ proposed originally by Michel Foucault, but developed more broadly by subsequent writers. Given the theme of the book, some explanation of my decision to focus on governmentality rather than habitus seems in order. My substantive focus here is on the output of the state policy process, exemplified by the production of ‘regional economic strategies’ in the United Kingdom. The idea of habitus, with its concern for the dispositions of human agents, draws attention to, among other things, the social character of the state bureaucracy; for example the ways in which the characteristic outlook of the state’s personnel is shaped by the acquisition of cultural and symbolic capital through schooling and professional training. These issues are of course vitally important. However, my principal focus here is on the forms of knowledge written into state policy and the ways in which those knowledges constitute particular kinds of objects of governance (such as ‘regions’), in particular ways. There are some obvious connections here with Bourdieu’s ideas – the concept of field, for example – and as I have shown elsewhere, (Painter 1997) Bourdieu’s work has much to offer this kind of study. However, for my specific concerns in this piece I have found the idea of governmentality more immediately relevant. This should not be taken to mean that the approaches of Bourdieu and Foucault are somehow neatly complementary, or can be unproblematically combined. The tensions between them are as clear as they are fascinating. A full comparative analysis, though, is beyond the scope of this chapter, and in what follows I shall develop my argument principally in relation to the notion of governmentality.