‘The ones who die are lost and the survivors are what we have’: neoliberal governmentality and the governance of Covid-19 risk in social media posts in Turkey

IF 1.8 4区医学 Q3 PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH

Health Risk & Society Pub Date : 2022-03-24 DOI:10.1080/13698575.2022.2056583

S. Atalay

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

Abstract This study focuses on understanding and explaining the technologies that affect the governance of the risk of Covid-19 in Turkey. To assess how this risk is governed by individuals, the study focuses on discussions around this disease within a Turkish Facebook group. The aim is to understand how individuals conduct themselves and establish norms of conduct against the risk of illness that, in this case of an infectious disease, involves governing the self while managing others. The results show that the discourse created around the governance of infection risk is very much in line with notions of neoliberal governmentality, individual responsibility, citizens as consumers, and individuals as entrepreneurs. Governing the risk of Covid-19 is related to prevalent ways of prioritising or recognising economic explanations, and cost calculation and assessment of successful governance using quantifiable variables, such as the number of new cases and deaths. Concepts like herd immunity and natural selection are open to discussion. Individuals who believe that the government is primarily responsible for risk governance assert that they are paying taxes and advocate that, disciplinary measures should be taken by the government, whereas the opposing view states that individuals are responsible for the governance of Covid-19 risk. We interpret both these opposing views as illustrating neoliberal governmentality and representing contractual and familial state–citizen relationships.

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“死去的人失去了，幸存者就是我们拥有的”:土耳其社交媒体帖子中的新自由主义治理和Covid-19风险治理

本研究的重点是理解和解释影响土耳其Covid-19风险治理的技术。为了评估这种风险是如何由个人控制的，这项研究侧重于土耳其Facebook小组中关于这种疾病的讨论。其目的是了解个人如何行事，并建立针对疾病风险的行为准则，在这种情况下，传染病涉及在管理他人的同时管理自己。结果表明，围绕感染风险治理的论述与新自由主义治理、个人责任、公民作为消费者和个人作为企业家的概念非常一致。治理Covid-19风险涉及优先考虑或承认经济解释的普遍方式，以及使用新病例和死亡人数等可量化变量计算成本和评估成功治理的方法。像群体免疫和自然选择这样的概念是可以讨论的。认为政府对风险治理负有主要责任的个人主张他们是在纳税，并主张政府应该采取纪律措施，而反对意见则认为个人应对新冠肺炎风险的治理负责。我们将这两种相反的观点解释为新自由主义治理的例证，并代表了契约和家庭的国家-公民关系。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Health Risk & Society Multiple-

CiteScore

3.30

自引率

14.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Health Risk & Society is an international scholarly journal devoted to a theoretical and empirical understanding of the social processes which influence the ways in which health risks are taken, communicated, assessed and managed. Public awareness of risk is associated with the development of high profile media debates about specific risks. Although risk issues arise in a variety of areas, such as technological usage and the environment, they are particularly evident in health. Not only is health a major issue of personal and collective concern, but failure to effectively assess and manage risk is likely to result in health problems.