Förändring som norm

Om kapitalistiska nödvändigheter och reflexiva frågeställningar

Abstract

The aim with this article is to discuss the normalisation of change in relation to a capitalistic discourse. The speech about the flexible human being and the changing world is very common in industries and in the rhetoric about economic growth. Change is described as a natural force that you both are a part of and have to adapt to. However, the speech about flexibility, as a human quality, exists parallel to understandings of identities such as woman, Asian etc as stable and predictable. There is also a common speech about heterogeneous groups as more creative than homogenous. Gender- and national identities tend to become trademarks or logos. The ideas of flexibility as a human quality and identities as stable and predictable are both articulated with a capitalistic discourse. The later one is then represented as a prerequisite for a positive social diversity, and self-fulfillment. It is very easy to forget that capitalistic principles are ground to several relations of subordinations.

The self-reflexive question if not a poststructuralist perspective, which questioned the idea of stable identities, is part of the process that normalises ideas about the flexible man is also raised and discussed in the article. One conclusion is that it is important to be aware of with what discourse speech about change is articulated with.