Affection and care: pillar of the neoliberal social policy

Abstract

This article starts from the premise that, in Chile, there has been a political and moral repositioning of social matters that has meant the alleged end of the neoliberal wave of the 80s and 90s and a restructuring of a New Social State. Nevertheless, I argue that technologies of subjectivation and government are installed through policies oriented towards protecting individuals and through practices of affection and care. Such policies and practices articulate and reinforce neoliberal rationalities. Based on two ethnographic studies – one on the relations between enforcers and beneficiaries of social protection policies and the other about sociocultural relationships in schools - I will show how contemporary social policy produces a new relationship between citizens and the State.