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Article Excerpt
From the first half of the 1990s, and especially after the accession to European Union in 1995, immigrant authorities and administration have emphasized the significance of immigrant associations in integration of immigrants in Finland. The purpose of the associations from the administrative perspective is to socialize and activate immigrant communities and individuals according to basic political rationalities, such as security of the society, happiness of the population and individuals, and cultural pluralism. On the one hand immigrant associations are technology through which integrative government of individuals and communities is implemented. On the other hand, associations themselves are governed through multiple techniques, mainly funding and registration. The author approaches this associational government of integration of immigrants with the "toolkit" applied from Foucauldian governmentality studies. KEYWORDS: Immigrant associations, integration, governmentality, rationalities, techniques of government
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Individual subjects are transformed into citizens by what I call technologies of citizenship: discourses, programs, and other tactics aimed at making individuals politically active and capable of self- government. (1)
Mitchell Dean argues that government of modern Western societies occurs more and more through agencies located within civil society, which enable people to be active and self-responsible in their own governance. (2) Especially in the social sector, linked to the questions of exclusion and marginalization, civic organizations are recently considered to be one of the main producers of acts of such empowerment. These "technologies of citizenship" (3) call people in marginal positions (such as the unemployed, the disabled, substance addicts, and immigrants) to be self-responsible through actions that are considered acceptable for them in order to advance their participation in the fields of "normal society."
As in many European countries, in Finland one of the "risk groups" in such marginal position is immigrants. In their case, the question of citizenship is actualized in a particular way, as none of them have Finnish nationality in the beginning. Nation-state citizenship in their case is problematic, as immigrants are typically perceived as culturally--although often also religiously, economically, and politically--different. Without programmatic governance, their difference can be thought to form a risk for the security and coherence of Finnish society. (4) Programmatic governance of this risk does not usually touch upon all the immigrants, but only those with limited opportunities to participate in the institutions of the receiving society, that is, those "at risk": refugees, asylum seekers, unemployed, uneducated, youth, women, elderly, and so on.
In accordance with one of the main principles of advanced liberalist ideas of government, these at-risk newcomers need civic education to the extent that they themselves can take responsibility for their own societal development, but in a manner in which the public administration intervenes in their spiritual growth as little as possible. With this premise in mind, one of the most rational avenues for people's societal and personal development is through their own communities. (5) The primary research question pursued in this article, consequently, concerns how this is done in the case of immigrants in Finland. What makes this question particularly interesting in the Finnish case is, first, the strong welfare-state tradition; so far, the state has been the axiomatic funder, organizer, and provider of health, welfare, and cultural services. Second, civic associations have traditionally served the role of mediator between citizen goups and the public sector." (6) Third, a special characteristic of Finland has been the small number of immigrants and the relatively short history of immigration. However, there is one international policy trend that Finland shares with others: Advanced forms of liberal economic and political rationality, mainly in the guise of "New Public Management" and ideas about an active and self-responsible individual, have recently come to influence such existing traditions. The synergy and resonance of established traditions with this new trend is what makes the Finnish case of immigrant associations and public administration of special interest.
The focus of this article is on the expectations of the immigration administration and public authorities for the immigrant associations. The primary data used here consists of twenty-five local and national administrative documents concerning governance of migration and immigrant associations. The second part of the data consists of five interviews of migration officials in two case cities, Tampere and Jyvaskyla, together with seven interviews of workers in integration projects. The third part of the data consists of the periodical MoniTori, the official Finnish magazine for immigration affairs, from the years 2000-2003. The purpose of the data collection has been to conceive a comprehensive view of interests of administrative bodies toward immigrant associations.
I approach the data mainly with two "Foucauldian" concepts: First of all, I explore what the administrative rationalities concerning integration of immigrants through their own associations are like. What are the broad historically developed and constructed knowledge and truth formations (7) behind the migration work in this context? The second part of analysis consists of examining the techniques of government linked to the associations in administrative discourse. In what ways does the public administration promote both immigrant associations and the individuals that are their members and customers in this context? How are these actions expected to improve the immigrants' responsibility, self-esteem, and engagement in the process of integration? In relation to Mitchell Dean's (8) definition, the latter question deals with the relation of government and ethics. It aims at illuminating how somewhat impersonal general technologies are incorporated into subjects' self-formation in empirical practices, in something that can be called "governmental-ethical practices," or "technologies of the self." (9)
In addition to the analysis of rationalities and techniques of government, I seek to illustrate the relevance of a governmentality toolkit for understanding problematics of power in the integration of immigrants in Finland while simultaneously indicating this phenomenon as a potential site for exploring governmentality. Jonathan Xavier Inda has studied governmentality in the United States in order to show how the exclusion of "illegal" immigrants is codified as an essential and noble pursuit necessary to ensure the survival of the social body." (10) My purpose is, rather, to show how the inclusion of "legal" immigrants and political efforts toward it are codified as an essential and noble pursuit necessary to ensure the survival of the social body in Finland, and to ensure that the sociocultural difference of the "immigrant others" is limited to the extent that they can become a functional part of the social body, "us."
Modern Government
In modern Western societies, where something that Foucault called governmentalization of the state (11) has taken place, government works abundantly through complex networks of civil society, while the life-world of individuals and the government itself has become a process of self-evaluation and self-reparation. This has necessitated the mobilization of governmental techniques, which measure and regulate the everyday life and security of the population and its individuals, such as vital statistics, public health institutions and programs, and compulsory general education. Modern government aims to optimize the creative forces of citizens in the name of survival of the state and its population. Government is something that secures the social development according to institutions, practices, ideas, and behaviors that are considered normal. (12) Mitchell Dean says,
Government is any more or less calculated activity, undertaken by a multiplicity of authorities and agencies, employing a variety of techniques and forms of knowledge, that seeks to shape conduct by working our desires, aspirations, interests and beliefs, for definite but shifting ends and with a diverse set of relatively unpredictable consequences, effects and outcomes. (13)
Governmentality, then, means "the ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses, and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target a population; as its principal form of knowledge, political economy; and as its essential technical means, apparatuses of security." (14) Government within the governmentality framework appears more as forms of action and relations of power that aim to guide and shape the actions of others or oneself, than as direct force, control, or domination. (15)
The rationality of government is a way or system of thinking about the nature of the practice of government, that is its mentality. It "can be thought of as a necessary condition of governmental practices." (16) Rationalities (re)produce existing truth formations and contain knowledge about what are the best societal conditions and how the government should work in order to achieve and maintain them. Rationalities as such do not guarantee the achievement of specific ends in the processes of government. To be effective, government must be successful in constructing technical means for its rationalities. Techniques mediate rationalities to the human life-world. The relationship between rationalities and life-world practices also works the other way around: Particular practices are being rationalized--brought into the sphere of reasonable thinking considering their meaning and consequences--through technologies, which consist of deliberated governmental acts guiding practices of groups and individuals. (17)
Techniques of governmentality are often divided into two Foucauldian approaches. First, there are, what I call, techniques of governance, which take place on the organizational level, and whose target is the individual citizen--they are techniques that aim at governing others. Here, these techniques work through collectives of citizens and aim at enabling at-risk citizens to take care of their own lives in the way that is the "normal" and the "right" way. Second, there are techniques of the self. Those are physical and mental practices with which individuals make themselves act morally,...
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