The Politics of Literacy in Sweden 1949–2013 : A Governmentality Studies Perspective

Sammanfattning: The aim of this master’s thesis is to trace examples of political rationality and governmental technologies in a selection of final reports of Swedish Public State Inquiries (SOU) where literacy and related concepts are fea-tured. I make use of the governmentality studies perspective developed by Nikolas Rose and colleagues. This can be described as a theoretical and methodological approach based on Michel Foucault’s concepts of govern-mentality, subjectivity, truth and knowledge, whose focus is on the ways in which social phenomena are repre-sented politically as problematic and how governmental technologies, in the shape of evaluative techniques, institutional practices, tools and programmes of reform and intervention, are developed for the remedy of such ‘social problems’. I pose questions, stemming from my primary aim, which relate to the observation of political rationality in my material, the kinds of governmental technologies which are suggested as useful or necessary, the aspirations of government discernible, as well as how literacy might be seen. I demonstrate that literacy can certainly be viewed as a governmental technology, employed in the realisation of political aspirations, on the basis of ideals of participation, influence, lifelong learning, and access, and through a political rationality, common in advanced liberal societies, which promotes notions of self-empowerment, autonomy and freedom. The ideal citizen is, I conclude, conceptualised principally as a Swedish-born, able-bodied, adult reader. This is achieved through a process of othering, or ‘dividing practices’, which places children, young people, immigrants, and to some ex-tent, people with reading difficulties and disabilities outside of the picture of literate normality. This is a two year master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum Studies.