Bachelor thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (BSc)
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When a person or an institution has the ability to act upon what they believe is the best possible situation - or at least a relatively good set of circumstances - through changing real-life...Show moreWhen a person or an institution has the ability to act upon what they believe is the best possible situation - or at least a relatively good set of circumstances - through changing real-life livelihoods, they engage with the politics of desirability. That means that they are positioned within the political playing field of actors with different degrees of power to act upon what they believe is desirable. This thesis is an attempt to discover truths about the political relationship between government - and the act of governance - and those whom are influenced yet not fully involved with the processes that influence them. The analysis builds upon two types of cases: one concerns general descriptions of regimes’ governance, rationales, techniques and ideologies; and the other concerns government responses to contestations to its governance. Each case is shortly analysed in regards to the concept of desirability. After presentations and short discussions of the cases, I present two different dimensions of critiques on government’s dealing with the matter of desirability: contingent issues, that can be found explicitly in the cases, but can vary amongst regimes; and inherent limits, which are present, by definition, in every attempt at governance from outside. The latter critiques come down to problematising the core asset of government in the political realm of desirability. That core asset is its position of power, in which it is able to act upon its own conception of ‘what is desirable’ without involving conceptions and lived experience of the people most influenced by the government action; but also in which it cannot overcome its limits - deriving straight from the asset - to do justice to the open-ended, ethical question of desirability.Show less
