Studying the Agency of Being Governed

This edited volume seeks to provide guidance on how we can approach questions of governing and agency—particularly those who endeavour to embark on grounded empirical research— by rendering explicit some key challenges, tensions, dilemmas, and confluences that such endeavours elicit. Indeed, the contributions in this volume reflect the growing tendency in governmentality studies to shift focus to empirically grounded studies. The volume thus explicitly aims to move from theory to practice, and to step back from the more top-down governmentality studies approach to one that examines how one can/does study how relations of power affect lives, experience and agency. This book offers insight into the intricate relations between the workings of governing and (the possibility for) people’s agency on the one hand, and about the possible effects of our attempts to engage in such studies on the other. In numerous ways, and from different starting points, the contributions to this volume provide thoughtful insights into, and creative suggestions for, how to work with the methodological challenges of studying the agency of being governed. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, global governance and research methods.

PART I, 1. Introduction, Maria Stern, Sofie Hellberg and Stina Hansson 2. Power, freedom and the agency of being governed, Stina Hansson and Sofie Hellberg 3. The artist of not being governed: The emergence of the political subject, Sergei Prozorov PART II 4. Studying provocations: the researcher’s care for what exists, Vikki Bell 5. Avoiding the ‘killing’ of lives: representations in academia and fiction, Christine Sylvester, 6. Institutional validation and the agency of the researcher, Gayatri Spivak 7. How to study power and collective agency: social movements and the politics of international aid, Håkan Thörn PART III, 8. Studying reform of/in/by the National Armed Forces in the DRC, Maria Stern and Maria Eriksson Baaz 8. Analysing responsibilisation in the context of development cooperation, Stina Hansson 9. From ‘Squaddie’ to ‘Bodyguard’: Towards a Remilitarised Agency?, Paul Higate 10. Studying the governing of lives through bio-narratives, Sofie Hellberg 11. Conclusion, Stina Hansson and Sofie Hellberg

Stina Hansson is a University Lecturerin Peace and Development Researchin the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden Sofie Hellberg is aUniversity Lecturerand a PhD candidate in Peace and Development Researchin the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden Maria Stern isProfessor of Peace and Development Research in the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University, Sweden