Citation

Lippert R. Eur. J. Cult. Stud. 2010; 13(4): 477-494.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1367549410377155

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

From the inception in the early 1980s of the Foucauldian-influenced corpus of work known as ‘governmentality studies’, theorists sought to encourage the empirical study of rationalities and technologies of government as elements that are mutually dependent but not related in a one-to-one fashion. Yet in the years since then, rationalities have received attention from analysts to the relative neglect of technologies. This article undertakes an analysis of the business improvement district and church sanctuary: two disparate, mundane and mutant devices which suggest that technologies cannot be permanently assigned to one kind of power; can shift back and forth between civil society and the state; and can resemble heretofore disassociated technologies. Reinvigorating the quest to understand technologies of government such as these necessitates a greater openness to their possible links to a plurality of powers and recognition of their historical character and capacity for mutations.