Empowerment as an affective-discursive technology in contemporary capitalism: insights from a play

Over recent years, an increasing body of research in social and cultural studies has investigated the contemporary processes of social change from the point of view of affective capitalism. In this article, we take under scrutiny one of its technologies, namely, empowerment, by which we mean a state characterised by feelings of strength, ability and power that enable agency. More specifically, we investigate the way empowerment is presented in a cultural product, a play that tells a story about personnel training in a factory, shown in a city theatre in Finland. By linking recent theorisation of affective capitalism with an investigation of the intertextual and interdiscursive relations of …

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Language, (em)power(ment) and affective capitalism : the case of an entrepreneurship workshop for refugees in Germany

Abstract This paper seeks to advance research on the nexus of language, work-related training and affective capitalism by focusing on an entrepreneurship workshop organized for newly arrived refugees in Germany. Despite the occupational orientation, the primary objective of the workshop was not establishing a business but “empowering” the participants by guiding them to adopt “an entrepreneurial mindset”. To delve deeper into this ‘will to empower’, the study brings together the perspectives of governmentality studies, ethnography, discourse studies and affect studies. To investigate in more detail the evocation of the ‘entrepreneurial mindset’, the study draws on ethnographic data collecte…

Semiotics of pride and profit: interrogating commodification in indigenous handicraft production

This study investigates the shifting terrain of pride, profit and power relations in minority language communities under contemporary globalisation. While “pride” associates linguistic-cultural heritage with identity and preservation, “profit” views these as sources of economic gain. In contemporary late capitalism, “pride” seems to be increasingly giving way to “profit”. Arguing that this transformation needs to be interrogated in terms of complexity and that a detailed, multilayered semiotic analysis can open a privileged window for such an inquiry, this study combines critical multimodal discourse analysis and an ethnographic approach to analyse processes of semiotic commodification in h…

Enterprising refugee women: Analyzing postfeminist governmentality in an organizational context

This study examines a model project initiated by a German Federal Ministry in the middle of the vast increase in forced migration to Germany after 2015. The project aimed at facilitating the integration of female refugees into German society by way of ‘empowering’ them to become self-employed. A business counseling agency with a feminist orientation was commissioned to design and run the project. Interpellating refugee women as subjects of entrepreneurial self-actualization to enact gender equality, the project embodies a tangible example of postfeminist governmentality. Combining recent research on postfeminism with analytics of governmentality, the study directs its analytical gaze to the…

Introduction : language, work and affective capitalism

Abstract This special issue contributes to scholarship on language and affective economy by exploring the role played by affect in shaping work and workers under current configurations of capitalism. We take as a starting point the observation of increased valorisation and instrumentalisation of affect in the contemporary phase of capitalism. In this editorial introduction to the special issue, we set the scene by first outlining our questions, aims and objectives. Subsequently, we situate the contribution made by this issue in a larger social theorisation of affect and capitalism, particularly the notion of affective capitalism, and reflect on how this theorisation can contribute to sociol…

Way better than the original!! Music video covers and language revitalisation : A sociosemiotic view

The development of the social media has opened up new spaces and genres for minoritised languages. As argued in previous research, access to new media spaces can contribute to the revitalisation of minoritised languages by generating new functions and values for them. Combining sociolinguistic and sociosemiotic approaches and bringing together data from four minority language contexts, Irish, Welsh, Sámi, and Corsican, this study addresses the potential of music video covers on YouTube to contribute to language revitalisation. The investigation suggests that music video covers in minority languages can have significance in language revitalisation in both language ideological and practical t…

“Languaging the worker : Globalized governmentalities in/of language in peripheral spaces”

In the introduction to the special issue “Languaging the worker: globalized governmentalities in/of language in peripheral spaces”, we take up the notion of governmentality as a means to interrogate the complex relationship between language, labor, power and subjectivity in peripheral multilingual spaces. Our aim here is to argue for the study of governmentality as a viable and growing approach in critical sociolinguistic research. As such, in this introduction, we first discuss key concepts germane to our interrogations, including the notions of governmentality, languaging, peripherality and language worker. We proceed to map out five ethnographically and discourse-analytically informed ca…

Shaping subjects of globalisation: at the intersection of voluntourism and the new economy

Volunteer tourism is one of the latest branches of the ever expanding globalised tourism. The initiative Workaway, an expression of this trend, was established in the late 90s with the aim of promoting “cultural understanding between different peoples and lands throughout the world”. The figure of the workawayer as a new cosmopolitan subjectivity started to take shape. With the growth of the tourism industry, the Workaway scheme has started to be of interest also to tourism entrepreneurs, especially in the global peripheries such as northern Lapland, home to the indigenous minority language community of the Sámi. By signing up as a volunteer in a heritage tourism resort, the workawayer, the…

Girls strike back : the politics of parody in an indigenous TV comedy

The diversification of the media has opened up new spaces for performances that seek not only to evoke laughter but also to voice social critique. One example of this development is the TV comedy show Märät säpikkäät/Njuoska bittut, created by two young women belonging to the indigenous Sámi people living in Finland. This paper focuses on one particularly critical sketch in the show: a counter-parody of a popular parody of the Sámi presented by two Finnish male comedians. The original sketch was a parody of ethnicity. As they strike back, however, the female presenters consciously foreground the categories of gender and class, thereby introducing a completely new figure: a white, urban, und…

Music video covers, minoritised languages, and affective investments in the space of YouTube

AbstractWhile interest in affective processes has led to an affective turn in cultural studies, in sociolinguistics this perspective has been given less attention. This study takes up the ‘lens of affect’ and directs it on two cases exemplifying the circulation of minoritised languages in new media spaces: music video covers from two minority-language contexts, Irish and Sámi, uploaded on YouTube. Combining recent theorising on affect with insights from sociolinguistic research, the study investigates how the YouTube users’ affective investments contribute to a (re)evaluation of the two minoritised languages, their speakers, and the related ethnic/national belongings, and how these investme…

Putting resources into practice: a nexus analysis of knowledge mobilisation activities in language research and multilingual communities

Recent demand within the academy for language research that bridges different stakeholders renders the social relevance of research a factor in the academic competition for research funds [Curry, M. J., & Lillis, T. (2013). Introduction to the thematic issue: Participating in academic publishing – consequences of linguistic policies and practices. Language Policy, 12, 209–213]. This calls for new means and innovations for designing and carrying out knowledge mobilisation activities, with consequences concerning where, how and with whom this type of undertaking can or should be done. In this paper we, a team of (multilingual) researchers working within the fields of multilingualism, minority…

Discourse Matters : Localness as a Source of Authenticity in Craft Businesses in Peripheral Minority Language Sites

Localness’ has gained currency as a source of authenticity and distinction in the niche marketing of the globalised new economy. This has created opportunities for peripheral minority language sites to capitalise on their geographically and culturally peripheral location, and has lifted tourism and handicraft industries to key sites of socio-economic development in these regions. Although ‘localness’ may seem like a ready source of economic gain in cultural production in such sites, it does not come without consequences for the cultural entrepreneurs. This paper explores what is at stake for cultural entrepreneurs in the promotion of localness as a source of authenticity. The study focuses …