Achieving active inclusion in an industrial community? Appropriating working-class culture in the local activation of unemployed

Abstract

ABSTRACT As a way of managing the challenges posed by automation, relocation of production, and economic crises, the Western welfare states have sought to implement so called active societies fostering changeable and self-reliant citizens able to navigate flexible capitalism responsibly. Increasingly, this plays out at the local level. Under the banner of active inclusion, a sense of community is here thought to turn the unemployed and presumably excluded into active and productive citizens. Drawing on much-needed ethnographical observations from a local activation scheme situated in a former industrial community, this article highlights the difficulties of implementing the active society locally. Employing Boltanski and Thévenot’s ‘worlds of worth’ framework, it is shown how the management of the operations sought to balance the fostering of employable individuals with maintaining institutionalised community obligations. Ultimately, the article raises questions of the ideals inherent in the active society policy orientation, and what tensions it entails.