Abstract
Over the past decades, project-based interventions directed towards unemployed and poor people in identified ‘deprived’ neighbourhoods have become a well-established practice within the EU. In the Swedish context, the objective to break segregation and end social exclusion has generated, and continues to generate, hundreds of projects directed towards certain targeted groups and so called problematic and vulnerable areas. Drawing from empirical studies of EU-funded labour market projects in Malmö, Sweden, the argument brought forward in this chapter is that these projects become practically operational and morally justifiable and legitimate through three acts of translation; framing, calculation, and arrangements of visibility. Using these processes of translation as methodological tools, the ambition is to offer a critical analysis of projectification that is theoretically reflective, empirically anchored, and politically motivated. The chapter illustrates the sometimes-contradictory and politically problematic nature of the inner workings of projects, both in terms of how they are motivated and articulated, financially constructed, and promoted.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
In Foucault-inspired language, this view can be referred to as governmentality, a concept coined to capture “the intrinsic links between ways of representing and knowing a phenomenon (rationality) and a way of acting upon it as to transform it (technology)” (Miller & Rose, 2008, 15).
References
Abdul Fattah, N. (2014, December 16). Sluta göra oss i förorten till labbråttor. ETC. Retrieved from http://www.etc.se/ledare/sluta-gora-oss-i-fororten-till-labbrattor
Ahmed, S. (2014). The politics of good feeling. Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, 10(2), 1–19.
Bacchi, C. (2009). Analysing policy: What’s the problem represented to be? Pearson.
Brown, W. (2006). American nightmare: Neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and de-democratization. Political Theory, 34(6), 690–714. https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591706293016
Callon, M. (1984). Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. The Sociological Review, 32, 196–233. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1984.tb00113.x
Czarniawska, B. (2004). On time, space, and action nets (Vol. 11, p. 773). Gothenburg Research Institute.
Dikec, M. (2005). Space, politics and the political. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 23(2), 171–188. https://doi.org/10.1068/d364t
Edenborg, E. (2017). Politics of visibility and belonging: From Russia’s “homosexual propaganda” laws to the Ukraine war. Routledge.
Farias, I. (2010). The politics of urban assemblages. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 15(3–4), 365–374. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2011.595110
Farias, I., & Bender, T. (2010). Urban assemblages. How actor-network theory changes urban studies. Routledge.
Fogh Jensen, A. (2012). The project society. Aarhus University Press.
Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect. Studies in governmentality. University of Chicago Press.
Hacking, I. (1995). The looping effects of human kinds. In D. Sperber, D. Premack, & A.-J. Premack (Eds.), Causal cognition: A multidisciplinary debate. Oxford University Press.
Krause, M. (2014). The good project. Humanitarian relief NGO’s and the fragmentation of reason. The University of Chicago Press.
Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Sage.
Law, J. (2004). After method: Mess in social science research. Routledge.
Marcus, E. (1995). Ethnography in/of the world systems: The emergence of a multi-sited ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 84–100.
Mc Glinn, M. (2018). Translating neoliberalism. The European Social Fund and the governing of unemployment and social exclusion in Malmö, Sweden. [Doctoral thesis, Malmö University]. Malmö University Publications. Retrieved from https://mau.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1404314/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Miller, P. (1990). On the interrelations between accounting and the state. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 15(4), 315–338. https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-3682(90)90022-M
Miller, P. (2001). Governing by numbers: Why calculative practices matter. Social Research, 68(2), 379–396. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971463
Miller, P., & Rose, N. (2008). Governing the present. Polity Press.
Rabinow, P. (2003). Anthropos today. Reflections on modern equipment. Princeton University Press.
Robson, K. (1991). On the arenas of accounting change: The process of translation. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 16(5/6), 547–570.
Rose, N. (2004). Powers of freedom. Reframing political thought. Cambridge University Press.
Rose, G. (2012). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials (3rd ed.). Sage.
Rose, N., & Miller, P. (2010). Political power beyond the state: Problematics of government. The British Journal of Sociology, 6(1), 271–303.
Sassen, S. (2001). The global city: New York, London, Tokyo (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press.
Sävenstrand, A., Svensson, L., Holmström, P., Forssell, R., & Fred, M. (2012). Pärlbandsprojekt: projekt som verktyg i en långsiktig utvecklingsstrategi. SPeL – Strategisk påverkan och lärande.
Scott, D. (1995). Colonial governmentality. Social Text, 43, 191–220. https://doi.org/10.2307/466631
Standing, G. (2011). The precariat. Bloomsbury Academic.
Svensson, G. (2008). Makt att förändra. En samling inspirerande projekt om hur man kan bryta utestängande normer och strukturer. Swedish ESF-Council.
Informants
Informant 1: Senior academic who has been involved in the evaluation process related to two of the eight selected ESF-projects. Interview conducted on August 19, 2015 at Malmö University.
Informant 2: Senior management within the Swedish ESF-council. Interview conducted on September 4, 2015 at the local ESF-office in Malmö.
Informant 6: National coordinator for the Swedish ESF-council. Interview conducted on November 18, 2015 in Stockholm.
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my gratitude to Beata Jałocha for insightful comments on a previous draft of this chapter. Your commitment, honesty, and humble brilliance have been encouraging and invaluable. I would also like to thank Erin Cory for proofreading this text and making valuable and supportive comments along the way.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mc Glinn, M. (2023). What Makes It Tick? On the Projectification of the Labour Market in Sweden. In: Fred, M., Godenhjelm, S. (eds) Projectification of Organizations, Governance and Societies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30411-8_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30411-8_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-30410-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-30411-8
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)