Governmentalities of construction: From mortar to modular systems and markets

In this article, we apply Foucault’s concept of governmentality in a dual analysis of the politics of construction sector development and the formation and transformation of 'the construction worker.' The concept of governmentality is well-suited for the purposes of such an analysis, as it directs attention to the ways in which control is the exercised over a specific area of institutional life through the shaping of individuals' conduct. We argue that construction, as a coherent sector, first was rendered governable in the 1940s as existing practices, materials and actors were subjected to a prescriptive norm operationalized by disciplinary power in order to achieve national modernisation. We then illustrate how construction since the mid-1990s increasingly has been shaped by two contrasting governmentalities framing the sector as respectively a resource area, with emphasis on innovation and capacity building, and as an economic entity, where deregulation and the establishment of free markets are the objectives of the development agenda. Alongside this analysis, we discuss the implications of this strategic codification of the construction sector as a governable entity for the formation and transformation of the construction worker. We illustrate how the very procedures, analyses and calculations that allowed the exercise of disciplinary power and the national modernisation in the 1940s also transformed the identity of the construction worker, depriving the craftsman his status as a knowledgeable actor, constituting instead the construction engineer as the pivotal actor. With the shift in the 1990s, we argue that the role of the craftsman has been rearticulated, for better and for worse, as an empowered individual with interests and responsibilities – not only for own conduct but also for the project and the sector as a whole. In the end we discuss the implications of a governmentality perspective for the future formation of professional identities in construction.