Biopolitics and boredom in the waiting room. On the power of being bored in the context of preventive family support

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this article, we take a concrete case study as a starting point for a reflection on preventive family support. More specifically, we conducted fieldwork in the setting of a waiting room of a childcare consultation office for parents with young children. The writings of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben allowed us to come to an alternative understanding of both the room as such and the behaviors of adults and children in this room. This article can be read as the result of an experiment with fieldwork in philosophy of education: an attempt to enrich Agamben’s philosophical account of biopolitics with an everyday example as well as an attempt to reread what actually happens in the case we have studied from an Agambenian perspective.