Dissertation project: Un-learning to labour? Activating the unemployed in a former industrial community

In my dissertation, I combine my interest in how we as individuals understand ourselves in relation to contemporary discourses of the self, with the so called ’active society’ orientation, referring to a rationale aiming at mitigating public sector expenditures on social benefits through the fostering of active and employable selves able and willing to find a place in the labour market. As the latter often plays out at the local level, whereby an increasing number of unemployed individuals become subjected to municipal activation programs instead of state employment services, I more specifically examine how the supranational discourse on active inclusion is understood and translated locally. Here, I explore ethnographically a pronounced industrial community’s efforts of managing the ‘active society’ at the local level.