Empowerment as Contested Terrain. Employability of the Dutch workforce

Sociological analysis has mainly portrayed empowerment as a manipulative masking discourse. However, various actors in society view it as the opposite of domination and espouse it as a goal. Empowerment can constitute a discursive field shaped by its internal contractions between autonomy and control, between ambition and risk of programmed failure – exacerbated by the emphasis on responsibility, and between focus and stigmatization. The paper presents a case study of employability policy in the Netherlands. Employability can be seen as empowerment in matters of career. The study is based on 4... Mehr ...