Biopolitics and boredom in the waiting room. On the power of being bored in the context of preventive family support

ABSTRACT

In this article, we take a concrete case study as a starting point for a reflection on preventive family support. More specifically, we conducted fieldwork in the setting of a waiting room of a childcare consultation office for parents with young children. The writings of the philosopher Giorgio Agamben allowed us to come to an alternative understanding of both the room as such and the behaviors of adults and children in this room. This article can be read as the result of an experiment with fieldwork in philosophy of education: an attempt to enrich Agamben’s philosophical account of biopolitics with an everyday example as well as an attempt to reread what actually happens in the case we have studied from an Agambenian perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• Agamben
• biopolitics
• profound boredom
• potentiality
• preventive family support
• waiting room
• early-childhood education
• fieldwork in philosophy of education

Notes

1. The following webpage (in Dutch) is about the consultation offices of Child and Prevention: http://www.kindenpreventie.be/onze-werking/consultatiebureaus/.

2. In the following webpage (in Dutch), the aims and objectives of Child and Family are summarized: http://www.kindengezin.be/over-kind-en-gezin/missie-en-waarden/visie/.

3. Huizen van het Kind would be literally translated as ‘Houses of the Child’, stressing the strong focus on the development of the individual child. For the sake of clarity, however, we translated the term as ‘family centers’ in order to avoid confusion with, for instance, orphanages.

4. Rabinow (2003) argued already for fieldwork in philosophy. In the next section, we elaborate on how we conceive of fieldwork in philosophy of education.

5. The fieldwork was done as part of a course on ethnography. This research was supervized by two permanent academic staff members of KU Leuven, who also checked ethical requirements and who gave ethical clearance for this research. We designed an informed consent form for the organization since it would have been practically impossible to let all parents sign such a form. Nonetheless, all parents had the opportunity to refuse participation, as we stuck a note to the entrance door of the waiting room to inform them about the research being conducted. As such, they had the opportunity to inform the researcher in the case they would prefer not to participate at any time. At every moment, the researcher was willing to address all questions and remarks raised by the participants. Pictures were only taken when the room was empty or with explicit consent of the people portrayed in the pictures. These pictures were only used for research purposes.

6. For a map of the room, see Figure 1. For an example of such a trajectory, see Figures 2 and 3.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of the KU Leuven under Grant ZKC4752/OT/12/039/BOF. Title of the project: ‘Under the spell of learning. The “learning society” as a challenge for the public role of school, university and family education’.

Notes on contributors

Hans Schildermans

Hans Schildermans is a PhD student affiliated to the Laboratory for Education and Society, KU Leuven. He has been working on early-childhood education, the development of so-called ‘learning sciences’, architectural implications of the educational notion of scholé, and the education of attention. His current research focuses on the educational form of the university and, drawing on philosophical, anthropological, historical, and architectural theories, he develops a contemporary understanding of what university education can be today.

Joris Vlieghe

Joris Vlieghe studied philosophy and art history, and obtained his PhD in educational sciences on an investigation into the public and educational meaning of corporeality. He currently teaches at the department of Education Studies of Liverpool Hope University. His research focuses on how the growing presence of digital technologies alters existing school practices, and how this evolution goes together with new forms of subjectivity. He also investigates the shift from book-culture to screen-culture, and how this evolution affects our understanding of basic educational concepts such as literacy, creativity, and transformation.