Feeling like a bad investment: Exploring the lived experiences of being the object of social investment technologies in Danish public employment services

Abstract

How do young unemployed people experience being the object of social investment (SI) technologies in the public employment services (PES) in the Danish welfare state? Based on 39 in-depth interviews with young unemployment benefit recipients, I explore how they experience and relate to SI technologies thus filling an urgent gap in the literature linking the policy level concretely to subjective experiences. SI technologies are employed to improve human capital and enhance labour market opportunities. I argue here that they do so using ‘softer forms of power’. By applying a governmentality studies approach attuned to affects and emotions, I find that unemployed people govern themselves through economic and future-oriented ways of thinking and reasoning. The analysis shows that unemployed people's lived experiences of being the object of SI technologies are patterned in two (non-conflicting) ways: first, turning attention outwards, relating to themselves in an economic and future-oriented fashion, continuously calculating their market value in relation to norms in the labour market and in relation to rules and demands embedded in PES. Secondly, turning attention inwards making many of them prone to self-blame and feeling as a burden – as bad investments – fundamentally questioning their worth as human beings. Knowing more about the intended, and perhaps especially, the unintended effects, of SI technologies in everyday life practices enables a more qualified foundation for applying these policies in the future. It also opens a critical discussion; who are we investing in and for what purpose?