Graduation Date
Summer 2020
Document Type
Thesis
Program
Master of Arts degree with a major in Social Science, Environment and Community
Committee Chair Name
Yvonne Everett
Committee Chair Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Second Committee Member Name
J Mark Baker
Second Committee Member Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Third Committee Member Name
John Meyer
Third Committee Member Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Subject Categories
Environment and Community
Abstract
Western society’s intractable social and environmental problems arise outside the bounds of classical liberal ideation, challenging the utilitarian rationality, decision-making faculty, and popular legitimacy of our liberal institutions. Through a qualitative analysis of three collaborative, community-based institutions, this study aims to identify and illuminate alternative conceptions and organizational relationships, which transcend liberal shortcomings and succeed precisely where liberal institutions have failed. It draws on Michel Foucault’s account of liberal governance, discourse and subject formation, but employs a complex-systems lens to move from critical deconstruction to intentional normative construction, from radical subjectivism to a collaborative pragmatic realism, and from the critique of liberal governmentality to identifying and supporting alternatives. It concludes that collaborative institutional processes might be employed in the intentional development of unique commonmentalities—collectively organized structures, discourses and subjectivities—that overcome liberal crises by cultivating social, psychological and ecological resilience.
Citation Style
APA
Recommended Citation
Ferrara, Imil, "Constructing commonmentalities: toward collaborative governance, knowledge and subjectivity" (2020). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 407.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/407
Included in
Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Theory, Knowledge and Science Commons