From experimentalism to governance tool

Abstract

With point of departure in Danish local community work, this chapter discusses how local community work is caught between emancipatory goals and a sanctioning welfare state. It is shown how local community work is entangled with the rationalities of generating employability and developing parenting skills. Thus, on the one hand, tied up with the disciplining of residents and developing potentials for employability and pathways to citizenship, while, on the other hand, retaining critical reflection on structural conditions. The aim of this discussion is to investigate the critical potential of local community work and point to a possible revival as emancipatory because of its constant practical engagement and negation of the structural forces that counter it. Through empirical examples, it is shown how local work plays a crucial role in the oeuvre of urban life by facilitating encounters and collaborations that takes the connection between habitat (local environment of the neighbourhood) and habitus seriously. The first relates to how local community work professionals insist on seeing and developing the human being beyond administrative and policy categories, and the second relates to resistance to the effects of the governance of affect associated with government interventions.