Political Economy, Subjectivity and Agency: A Materialistic Governmentality Study of Microfinances

Abstract

As an analytical tool, Foucault’s concept of governmentality enables us to understand the structuring of subjective, political and economic agency as relations of power in a broader sense. This article shows how a materialistic governmentality study offers a more comprehensive understanding of political and economic relations by focusing on subjectivity and agency. The aim is to analyze forms of political government and their relation to subjectivities and technologies of the self. The rationality of neoliberal governmentality develops its efficacy through structuring the spheres of opportunities of action of the general public and inscribes itself into processes of subject formation. A central figure of neoliberal governmentality is the enterprising self. Instead of an “ordinary” exclusion of the subalterns from the social order, one detects their specific integration into political and economic processes. Against this theoretical background, the paper will focus on the discourse on microfinancial services in order to explore paradigms and power relations that emerge in the context of these programs. In particular the paper will draw attention to the explicit sexualized subjectivity of subaltern women in the ‘global South’ as (potential) receivers of microcredits. These women are targeted as primary “development agents” of their families and communities. Social change is thereby re-formulated in terms of integration into markets: Subaltern women are incited to integrate themselves into the global market as entrepreneurs, which has political and economic consequences.