Between compassion and racism: how the biopolitics of neoliberal welfare turns citizens into affective ‘idiots’

ABSTRACT

A sharp increase in racism and xenophobia, alongside an increase in philanthropy and charity, mark Europe’s Janus-faced reaction to the social consequences of the economic crisis. This paper goes beyond the racism/xenophobia vs. charity/philanthropy dualism, arguing that these seemingly antithetical responses have more in common than we may think.

• (1) Both are equally divisive and ‘othering’ practices. Whilst racism transforms human beings into de-humanized entities in order to be able to hate them, charity transforms human beings into dependent objects in order to be able to offer aid.

• (2) Both are strongly affective yet deeply apolitical reactions of people who lose their political agency as they become imbued with fear and insecurity; of citizens who turned into indebted apolitical objects, when social solidarity and welfare provision turned from a collective responsibility into a private affair.

When housing, healthcare, etc. became accessible mainly through private loans and mortgage markets, private welfare debt became the biopolitical tool that enrolled the workforce into volatile financial speculative practices and turned citizens into fear-imbued ‘idiots’, i.e. private individuals who can only care for their private matters. Understanding the biopolitics of privatized welfare and increased household debt as the process that drives this transformation of citizens into ‘idiots’ allows us to move beyond the false dilemma of charity vs. racism, in search of a politics of solidarity.

KEYWORDS:

• Affect
• biopolitics
• debt
• crisis
• welfare
• racism
• xenophobia
• philanthropy
• subjectification
• solidarity
• financialization

Acknowledgements

The first draft of this paper was presented as a conference paper at the 2015 Association of American Geographers’ Conference, under the title: ‘Between Compassion and Racism: Europe’s new Janus faced citizen… or … how fighting for the commons can avoid an anthropological catastrophe’ (Paper Session: ‘Subjectivation: struggles for (re)appropriation’, Session organizers: M García-Lamarca and M Kaika, Chicago, 21-25 April 2015). Many thanks are extended to all the ENTITLE Mentors and Fellows, and my colleagues at the University of Manchester and the University of Amsterdam. Particular thanks are owed to Melissa García-Lamarca, Dimitra Siatitsa, Irina Velicu, Giorgos Velegrakis, Rita Calvaro, Lazaros Karaliotas, Stavros Stavrides, Michael Janoschka, Sara González, Georgia Alexandri, Stuart Hodkinson, the INURA Athens 2015 organizing committee; and the Contested Cities conference organizing committee. Thanks also go to Erik Swyngedouw and Grigoris Kafkalas for commenting on earlier versions of this paper, and to the anonymous reviewers and the editors of European Planning Studies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The full text of the letter (in Greek) can be found on: ‘Greek Mothers Addressing the Popular Assembly of Direct Democracy at Syntagma Square’, Tuesday, July 19, 2011. Retrieved October 10, 2015, from http://spithathriasiou.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/blog-post_19.html, author’s translation.

2. Reported by True Vision, a police-funded hate-crime-reporting website. Cited in The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/29/frenzy-hatred-brexit-racism-abuse-referendum-celebratory-lasting-damage

3. Despite limitations in data availability and the fact that longitudinal comparability is impeded by differences in data collection methodologies between different sources, Table 1 does allow a comparative understanding of levels of household debt in each year (column).

4. ‘Gross debt-to-income ratio of households (including Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households) is defined as loans (ESA2010 code: AF4), liabilities divided by gross disposable income (B6G) with the latter being adjusted for the net change in pension entitlements (D8net). Detailed data and methodology on site http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/sectoraccounts’. (EUROSTAT, 2015)