Brugerinddragelse og stemning i arbejdet med unge og rusmidler

Socialt arbejde som ledelse af selvledelse

Abstract

This article is a written version of the lecture I gave defending the ph.d. thesis “User-driven Standards and Affective Subjectification”. The article builds upon ethnographic research of two municipal institutions that work with youth with a (problematic) use of substances, inspired by narrative, systemic and solution focused forms of therapy. This means that they try to handle challenges about motivation and participation, by avoiding to stigmatize the users and including their perspective.

The central question is how welfare state institutions can be developed and organized in ways so that they lead, educate, and govern citizens so they become able to govern themselves and develop their own lives. The most important contributions are to develop theoretical concepts and analyses of how user perspectives, particular configuration of spaces and affective phenomena such as mood, atmosphere, energy, and intensity, are crucial to produce change. This article contributes to a development of governmentality studies, social work, systemic, narrative, and solution focused therapeutic methods, and to a broader understanding of how to organize the welfare state’s institutions so they are able to facilitate the development of productive forms of self-governance.