Crisis is governance: Sub-prime, the traumatic event, and bare life

James Brassett*, Nick Vaughan-Williams

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article provides a critical analysis of how discourses of trauma and the traumatic event constituted the ethico-political possibilities and limits of the sub-prime crisis. Metaphors of a "financial tsunami" and pervasive media focus on emotional "responses" such as fear, anger and blame constituted the sub-prime crisis as a singular, traumatic "event" demanding particular (humanitarian) responses. Drawing upon the work of Giorgio Agamben, we render this constituted logic of event and response in terms of the securing of sovereign power and the concomitant production of bare life; the savers and homeowners who became "helpless victims" in need of rescue. Using Agamben's recent arguments about "the apparatus" and processes of subjectification and de-subjectification, we illustrate this theoretical approach by addressing the position of the British economy, bankers and homeowners. On this view, it was the movement between subject positions-from safe to vulnerable, from entrepreneurial to greedy, from victim to survivor-that marked out the effective manner of governance during the sub-prime crisis. In the process sovereign categories of financial citizenship, assetbased welfare and securitisation (which many would posit as the very problem) were confirmed as central to our future "survival". In short, (the way that the) crisis (was constituted) is governance.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)19-42
Number of pages24
JournalGlobal Society
Volume26
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2012

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Global and Planetary Change
  • Geography, Planning and Development

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