'A Snake's Coils Are Even More Intricate Than a Mole's Burrow.'** Individualization and Subjectification in Post-Disciplinary Regimes of Work***

Zusammenfassung

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In contemporary discourse it is almost commonplace to describe societies and work relations as highly individualized. In this article we develop a conceptual framework that enables us to discuss processes and practices of individualization as political technologies. Following a line of thinking influenced by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, we first illustrate three different regimes of work. The main focus is on elaborating and illustrating characteristics of the post-disciplinary regime of work which allows us to systematize fundamental shifts in the way of organizing and managing work. We then analyze contemporary strategies for producing the "appropriate individual" as "technologies of modulation" that focus on the production of the autonomous, flexible and adaptable subject. We suggest that these strategies are highly ambivalent and must not be seen in a deterministic way. They are necessarily an interplay of technologies that determine the conduct of individuals and "technologies of the self". This is reflected in the process of subjectification that contains both possibilities for increased subjection and for self-creation.

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Auszug

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'A Snake's Coils Are Even More Intricate Than a Mole's Burrow.'** Individualization and Subjectification in Post-Disciplinary Regimes of Work***

1. Introduction

It is now almost commonplace to describe modern societies as well as modern employment relations as highly "individualized". "Individualization" has been understood in a number of different ways. Most of the theories of individualization start from dualistic assumptions, setting society against the individual, or the individual against the organization. Individualization here refers to the process of progressive dissolution of traditional social milieus, which turn individuals back on themselves and provide them with more or less "risky" and "precarious freedoms" (Beck/Beck-Gernsheim 1996, 2002). From this perspective, individualization and associated new forms of employment (flexible forms of employment, temporary employment, part-time work and flexible time arrangements, freelance and e-lance etc.) appear as more or less rational strategies that shift the risk from employers to employees.

From a critical perspective this is usually seen as a threat to individual integrity (e.g. Sennett 1998) and as undermining the collective interests of employees (e.g. Ackers et. al. 1996; Edwards 2003; Heery and Salamon 2000). On the other hand, prophets of the "entrepreneurial revolution" - such as Tom Peters (1999) - welcome the "free agent nation" and celebrate individualized forms of employment as liberation from bureaucratic forms of control, that are seen as patronising and repressive of human creativity. "The growth of the knowledge worker", so the argument goes, "has created a new opportunity for freedom and autonomy from the controls exercised by organizations" (Guest 2004: 2, emphasis added).

Critics tend to reject claims of increased freedom and dismiss them as pure ideology, which hides the reality of the increasing precariousness of jobs, the proliferation of insecure jobs, new forms of poverty, new structures of unequal distribution of wealth and income, uncertainty and the like.

Although the critical and the affirmative positions differ in their evaluation, they seem to share the basic assumption of a negative concept of power, which sees power mainly as repressive of individual freedom. They also seem to share a specific concept of "freedom": Freedom is understood as "freedom from" (in contrast to "freedom to"), so that the weakening of rules and regulations appears as an increase in "freedom" and "autonomy" (see critically Knights/Willmott 2002).

In this paper we want to develop a conceptual framework, which allows us to discuss processes and practices of individualization differently. In particular we want to show how the work of Michel Foucault, who fundamentally challenges these conventional assumptions, allows us to see the "autonomy" asserted as highly ambivalent and as an effect of a political strategy that is immanent in practices of organising social relations in general and work or employment relations in particular. His work allows us to understand the "concept of the 'free worker' who thrives on independence and high levels of employability" (Guest 2004: 2) as part of contemporary governmental strategy that seeks to mobilize rather than repress "autonomy". In contrast to conventional analyses Foucault...

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