Sociology of Rest: an Introduction

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The Sociology of Rest: an Introduction

Figure 1. Man near body of water (Faix, 2019)

Title: The Sociology of Rest: an Introduction Author: Nelli Halkosaari

Supervisor: Evelien Geerts Second Reader: Delphi Carstens Word Count: 26 320

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to introduce rest as a topic for sociology and to depict its relevance in today’s society. Represented in popular culture but not in research, the importance of rest is obvious yet controversial. The definition of rest in this thesis, established in an intersection with sleep, leisure and (non-)productivity, is both critically examined as a tool of neoliberal rationale but also painted as a possibility for its resistance. YouTube videos targeting rest, due to their popularity as a medium, were analysed through a combination of Foucauldian discourse analysis and semiology. The findings reported two discursive constructions of rest: rest from, with ideas of temporariness and permitted or deserved resting; and rest and mediation, where rest was constructed through objects or as an instrument. Rather than having intrinsic value, rest was defined as a means to an end. Visually rest was constructed through objects rather than bodily representation, and through activity rather than passivity. In combination, the definition of rest seems to be constructed this way to exist and matter in the time of neoliberal capitalism and governmentality. Rest as a topic calls for more research and should be established as a topic or field for future discussions.

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Thanks

My utmost gratitude goes out to my supervisor Evelien Geerts, who continued to inspire and encourage me on making my dreams come true. Thank you for sacrificing all the rest you could have gotten. My thanks also to my second reader Delphi Carstens for all the insight and

the alternative perspectives for my topic. Special thanks to Phil and Becca for always jumping to help me when I needed it.

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1. INTRODUCTION & RELEVANCE

“Neoliberal rationality eliminates what these thinkers termed “the good life” (Aristotle) or “the true realm of freedom” (Marx), by which they did not mean luxury, leisure, or indulgence, but rather the cultivation and expression of distinctly human capacities for ethical and political freedom, creativity, unbounded reflection, or invention.” (Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 2015, p. 43)

The never-ending need to be productive is defining entire generations of people. While cycles of work and rest have painted the history of our days, we are expected to spend every minute of our time being productive. From listening to audiobooks while driving a car,

accomplishing ten things before we even head out to work or optimising ways of

recuperation, we are expected to make the best out of every waking moment. Not following this stream of productivity is perceived as a weakness: procrastination and laziness need to be exterminated, and the popular media is sure to give you tips to tackle these vices. Yet

procrastination and laziness could also be called daydreaming and recovering - resting. The practice of rest seems to be forgotten to us. In a society where cities never sleep, are we allowed to rest without an agenda?

The history of rest can be painted through practices of recovery, lounging and napping. How have we practiced these in the past and to whom have they been allowed to exist? For example, how was resting constructed during times of colonisation and enslavement of people, how has gender impacted the possibilities to rest and how have these practices looked like during times of war and peace? Through mapping the past practices, we can look at what has evolved and how they materialise in how we define rest today. Just as other practices that have been considered obvious to the extent of being ignored, rest and resting holds in it a genealogy of information of life as it is. Our practices of resting - taking shapes as breaks from productive labour, taking breaks for social life, or as resistance to capitalism - in themselves contain possibilities to explore how we distance ourselves from society in the most mundane ways.

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The sociology of rest as a term and a discipline remains to be claimed. As I will elaborate in this paper, the extensive leisure studies and the sprouting interest in the sociology of sleep are not enough - with both of these being (to a growing extent) as much of a subject for

economisation, rest seems to be the nook that we can escape the neoliberal framework to. The popular culture is flooded with books, blog posts and videos of rest, sleep and productivity, but these subjects seem to have gone under the radar for social sciences. Maybe rest has been deemed to be irrelevant or unscientific. Or - can the absence of a sociology of rest possibly be explained through the same reasoning as lack of rest itself; why would we waste our time studying wasting time?

Following the reasoning of the American theorist Wendy Brown (2015), neoliberalism - understood as a form of ideology - has turned our political and social lives to be understood through an economic lens. This process of economisation reduces human life to a process of accumulating value where economical conduct is the only existing reality and, as noted in the quote above, life outside the rationale of economic discourse is eliminated. In this regime, humans are understood as human capital, where we have gone from being political,

intellectual humans who are more than their existence (bios) to existing only in the biological sense (zoe). Rooting her theories in the governance of human capital, through this

economisation, Brown builds on the theories of biopower. Coined by the French philosopher and historian Michel Foucault (1990), biopower describes the conquering of human lives as a matter of the state - only as zoe, not as juridical or political subjects. If the body is, as

Foucault (1991) notes, a concrete location where discourses are inscribed, how do our bodies look, feel and behave in the time of the neoliberal rule? Indeed, if the only conduct and the way of understanding comes from the economic truth discourses, it becomes understandable why rest has not existed in this discourse. “Life itself” is where the term rest culminates in - the time for recovery from the rest of one’s life, where the goal is to produce, achieve or optimise nothing. While the daily lives of the homo economicus are getting more productive and optimised, I want to look at how rest as a concept fits into the image.

Hence, I suggest that research of the sociology of rest is well due. Because of the lack of research on this concept, this thesis is focusing on the definition of rest. Highly relying on both theoretical and contextual definition processes, this paper aims to formulate rest as a topic, term and concept. I approach this definition as an intersection of leisure, sleep and productivity, through the theories of neoliberal governmentality and biopolitics. As I argued,

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the popular culture is filled with content on rest and resting in different contexts, which is why I turn my gaze towards it. I will examine YouTube videos on the topic. With billions of daily users, YouTube provides the perfect platform to analyse the variety of understandings and productions of rest. The aim of the study is to map how rest is conceptualised in the society in this time and space, and to further discuss why it is an important topic for further research. It will also strive to motivate the use of online videos and other user created content as a reflection of the current social climate.

Because of the foundational work I am laying with this thesis, I found it especially important to take my own position and accountability into position. Being transparent about my own subjectivity as well as the temporal and spatial situatedness of the definition of rest I am mobilising is focused on Chapter 4. This will also include the ethical considerations of the material I am examining, because of the exceptionality of the use of online videos in sociological research.

1.1 RESTING DURING A PANDEMIC

During the beginning of the writing process of this paper, the world was changing.1_{We were} faced with a pandemic caused by a coronavirus, and the society as we know it does not exist any longer. With social isolation forcing people to stay out of their jobs, hobbies and social gatherings, the notion and possibilities for rest have opened up in a completely new way. We are given the opportunity to look past the neoliberal framework, and like the waters in

Venice, our lives seem clearer and calmer without the pollution of the economic conduct. The research on rest has not been more needed than it is now. As the neoliberal regime tries to tell us that now is the time to be productive, to start new jobs, hobbies and finish off everything you have not had time for years, there is finally another voice telling us to slow down and rest. But even in this time, rest is a privilege that is not allowed for all. More than ever, capitalism makes sure that the wheels keep on turning, with the work of those who cannot afford to stay home. With social isolation the possibilities to escape from our daily lives at home and go rest somewhere else are non-existent. Familiar forms of leisure have been removed from our possibilities and we are forced to find places to rest and escape in our

1_{This thesis in particular has not significantly suffered from the impact of the pandemic, besides a}

slight delay on the schedule. With the focus on online material, no changes to the process needed to be made.

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immediate surroundings. Many are trying to hold a grasp into “normality” through constructions of routines and habits.

The disposability of human lives has been actualised in a completely new level - sacrificed to keep the economy alive, we are seeing the extent of the materialisation of human capital. The highly individualised neoliberal society shines in the times where “the normal” or “return to the normal” are driven at the cost of human lives. The capitalness of human lives materialises through the idea that the people working at the “necessary” jobs for the economy to function can be sacrificed or merely replaced by new ones. Especially targeting the already vulnerable groups, both the need for income and the requirement of specific professions to function, the pandemic is highlighting who, if any, is seen as killable in the society. This “making killable” will be discussed in further detail in Chapter 3 through the concept of necropolitics.

1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

How rest is constructed in YouTube videos 1. linguistically and 2. visually?

How does the discursive neoliberal framework affect how rest is portrayed in the material? What kind of social consequences might this have?

2. BACKGROUND

As mentioned above, previous research on the area of rest and sleep from the social sciences is scarce. With this in mind, I have conducted a somewhat thematic literature review

combining the fields of social sciences, leisure studies and behavioural sciences. I have positioned rest in an intersection with sleep, leisure and productivity, and aim to

conceptualise rest through defining and detailing an understanding of the three fields. Since rest is an uncharted field of research, I cannot rely on previous research to position this paper. Because of that, this literature review is dedicated to trying to position rest as a term, practice and concept among other, already explored fields, rather than to position my thesis.

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Figure 2. The Rest Diagram. (Halkosaari, 2020)

2.1 RESEARCH PROCESS

I have divided this literature review into following themes: leisure, sleep, rest and other perspectives. The goal with this literature review is to position my research on rest on the existing field as well as to help me define the term “rest” and its context. The material for this literature review is majorly obtained through search terms such as “sleep* +

governmentality” “leisure studies” and “sleep* + sociology” in Google Scholar, and through a reverse search of the widely referenced material in the found articles and books. Some of the literature has been suggested to me from colleagues and supervisors alike.

2.2 DEFINING REST

2.2.1 EXECUTING LEISURE

Leisure studies are considered to be a field of their own apart from sociology, but there are implications for inter- and sub-disciplinary studies (Stebbins, 2018). The sociology of leisure has been long dismissed, sometimes due to its “positive” nature, since sociology has a problem-focused approach. While mainstream sociology seems to shun leisure, the interdisciplinary sociology of rest has a foothold in the field.

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While leisure studies have been relevant for a long time (see e.g. Veblen, 1899), how leisure concretises in the society and the daily lives of its individuals has severely changed over the centuries. Leisure is seen to be born as a privilege of the upper class: this “nonproductive consumption of time” (Veblen, 1899) has been a part of the lives of the European upper class since the 16th century. Allowed to exist by the political and economic changes between the 16th and the 19th century, leisure took forms of sports and activities which quickly became an arena for economic profit (Turcot, 2016). Today, the arena of leisure has not escaped the effects of neoliberalism and has been widely monetised from fitness clubs (Maguire, 2008) to holidays (Baudrillard, 1998) in the process of trying to maximise our values. Without losing its class-related nature, leisure has become a self-determining and governing part of

everyone’s lives. In contrast to Veblen’s “nonproductive consumption”, leisure now fills a purpose of constant bettering and optimisation of our days.

Work and leisure have traditionally been seen as mutually exclusive: leisure is often defined as non-work, the time outside of work, free of work. The work/leisure dichotomy has been challenged, and dimensions of work have mixed in with leisure (Maguire, 2008), and leisure has been brought into work (McGillivray, 2004). This dichotomy has also been called a myth by Jean Baudrillard (1998) that is merely a mechanism that allows the conduct of work to transfer into leisure. Like Veblen (1899), Baudrillard sees that leisure is not just “free time”, but an investment and a way to materialise yourself through consumption. Focusing mainly on the concept of time in his text, Baudrillard sees that leisure time has become a part of a social, productive value and that the “free” in free time is questionable to say the least.

Even though it has a psychoanalytic standpoint instead of a sociological one as I do, I find a 1951 article by Alexander Reid Martin to encapsulate my understanding of rest the best. His understanding seems to transverse the boundaries of psychology and sociology. Focusing on the fear of relaxation and leisure, Martin maps out the possible internal causes for the lack of rest in individuals’ life. Dating back decades before the rise of neoliberalism, Martin sees the cultural glorification of compulsivity to be a reason for incapability for real rest, relaxation and leisure. He notes that this compulsive behaviour leads to compulsive leisure that is “always freedom from something, and never freedom for something” (1951, p.49). This idea of rest as a “break” or “holiday” reflects the “freedom from something”, as freedom from work. The “freedom from”, compulsive perspective reflects well the idea of the productivity requirement that is found in the neoliberal era; the activity of relaxation is not done leisurely,

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but compulsively. While Martin’s theories rely on psychoanalysis, similar ideas seem to rise from the entrepreneurialism and value maximisation of neoliberalism.

While leisure studies is a well-established field of research, and definitely includes an aspect of rest, I do not equate rest with leisure. Like Torkaski (1985) points out, leisure can include a variety of activities, such as playing sports, and is increasingly productive (Baudrillard, 1998) and therefore can hardly be seen as a form of rest. Rest can also be seen as contradictory to leisure; sleep is seen as leisure and an activity for a higher socioeconomic class while sleep is a passive state of rest for the working class or individual with lower social and economic capital (Taylor, 1993). While this distinction is based on sleep, I think it portrays a crucial conceptual difference: rest is seen as passive and a way of recovery while leisure is seen as active and a way of self-expression. Therefore, leisure does not equal rest, but can include it. In the intersection of leisure and rest, we find a history of privilege, internal and external forces and a question of how free our free time really is.

2.2.2 REST IS NOT ONLY SLEEP

Theories of sleep date back to Ancient Greeks but considering the amount of time that humans spend sleeping, it might be surprising that sleep was not considered an interesting field for medical, historical or sociological research up until the 20th century. In the early 1900s, the research on dreams took a head start in the hands of researchers such as Sigmund Freud and in the 1920s sleep started to gain a function and structure (Williams, 2002). Only after the First World War did the medical field take an interest in sleep and screening through physiological measurements such as the EEG were developed (Kroeker, 2007). Since then, sleep has turned into a widely researched and evaluated topic, with methods such as sleep labs developed for observation and optimisation (Williams, 2002). Mostly focused on medical, biological and psychological fields, sleep research still has little interest within sociological or historical studies. Besides a few exceptions (see for example Parsons, 1951; Schwartz, 1970), as Taylor (1993) points out, questions of who sleeps and how are still widely under the radar. Recently, some ground laying work has been done with the topic. One of the pioneers of the sociological focus on sleep, the British sociologist Simon Williams, has approached sleep from a genealogical (2002) as well as from a contextual (2011) perspective.

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Throughout time the moral codes on where, how, when and with whom to sleep have changed in their context but not in their importance. Sleep was a privilege and a pain at the same time for the pre-industrial society: factors such as hygiene, cycles of sleep and darkness limited and controlled the possibilities for resting. Williams (2002) summarises that while the quality of our sleep has gotten better, the quantity of it has descended. Besides through time, sleeping habits and norms also vary through location: as example whether we sleep once, twice or multiple times a day varies between different populations and cultures as well as where and when sleeping is allowed. The sleeping bodies are disciplined through the use of time and space - when and where sleeping and resting is allowed - initially with the goal to eliminate the waste of time (Foucault 1991).

Williams (2011) makes an interesting distinction between three different, current day,

discourses or approaches to sleep. The first, dominating one, follows the logic of “sleep is for the weak”. Attempting to diminish the meaning of sleep once and for all, this sleep-negative agenda focuses on the rationality of the waking hour and suppresses the meaning of sleep in our lives. Considered a great example of the “24/7 lifestyle”, this discourse cares only about productivity - which sleep is not a part of. As a counter to this, the second approach is concerned about sleep to a point where it is made both a private and a public issue. Focusing on the harmful effects it has on our society, this sleep-positive approach materialises through national policies as much as it does through the marketisation of sleep. Perfecting one’s sleep is achieved through various objects on the market, such as mattresses, medication and sleep laboratories. In other words, the realm of sleep is colonised and capitalised by the economic sphere, which is what the two approaches have in common. They embark on a tug of war in and around our bodies and society, co-existing and affecting sleep.

Sleepiness, the natural sign for a need to rest, is at the same time an individual and a social issue and represents that second sleep discourse. Sleepiness was medicalised by turning it into a variety of diagnoses and adopted by the popular media that fashioned sleepiness to be a public, social concern (Kroll-Smith & Gunter, 2005). Affecting one’s productivity being criminalised through traffic laws, sleepiness had become a hazard and a moral concern that one has personal responsibility over. Sleepiness and the lack of sleep has since been studied internationally, and through the reports that say that sleep deprivation is indeed a widespread problem, the discussion about how much sleep we really need is ongoing (Williams, 2002). The monophasic sleeping culture of the west is getting new suggestions through the

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popularisation of “power napping” during the day, and while it might seem a comforting opportunity, the motives for its popularity do not rise from compassion. Naps, traditionally allowed for children, the sick and the elderly gained popularity since “the drive for effective or efficient sleep as a boost to productivity and performance, both on and off the job, is now increasingly apparent, in certain (economic) sectors or segments of society at least”

(Williams, 2002, p. 118). Sleeplessness and sleep deprivation have become a normal state of being in today’s society.

A third, alternative, approach is also presented by Williams (2011): a critical-reflexive approach to sleep. This approach includes feminist, postcolonial and intersectional perspectives into sleep and how it is governed in today’s society. While wanting to

differentiate rest from sleep, I will rely on Williams’ (2011) division of the sleep discourses. With the economical discourse representing the two first, I consider my approach to be towards the critical-reflexive one. As I will elaborate below, my approach to rest is built on the foundation of theories about neoliberal governmentality and biopolitics, and a critical approach to how capitalism shapes and defines our sleep and rest. My definition and mobilisation of “reflexivity” will also be discussed in Chapter 4.

The reason why I see the need to distinguish rest and sleep as analytical categories lay in the historical disciplining of sleep and the role it is playing in society now. Considering the importance of sleep for our existence and capability to function, sleep is seen necessary, even though its framework is highly governed. Rest on the other hand, outside sleep, does not fill this requirement for survival, and hence cannot be tied together with sleep: practices of rest and resting can be distinguished from sleep and sleeping. In other words, while resting includes sleep, both its biological function (versus survival) and its social function remain to be explored.

2.2.3 OTHER POSSIBILITIES FOR DEFINING REST

One way of conceptualising our relation to rest is through resilience, the process of being able to survive, overcome and persist through (hardships of) life. Often used with a positive connotation to it, resilience can be seen as a way of exercising power and (self-)control, through seemingly neutral sources such as self-help books (Bracke, 2016). Resilience is seen as survival, and as I have pointed out before, a life of bare survival (zoe) does not include the act of resting.

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Sabbath, the Old Testament based rest day of Christianity and Judaism, is another door to access rest. In this religious tradition based on God’s rest on the 7th day of creation, one is supposed to take every Sunday for rest. While this has a different meaning for many, it is commonly thought that any productive activity should be avoided, and one should slow down their fast-paced lives to connect with their religious beliefs (Baab, 2005). Even though the sabbath is based on a religious tradition, it does bear a similar conceptualisation of rest than I do in this paper, as something non-productive and restoring.

The linguistic representation of rest in different languages has also been studied. Novikova and colleagues (2018) found similar representations of rest in English, German and Russian, where all three shared the definition of rest as a work break, holiday, peace and dream amongst others. Recovery as a definition of rest was only shared between English and German. It is interesting to note that rest is often seen as a break from something else, rather than an activity of itself. Along with holidays and holidays, even shorter times of rest are mostly seen as a break from work.

2.2.4 AT THE INTERSECTION OF GENDER AND REST

The theoretical and historical causes and implications for access to rest mediated by gender will be discussed in the next chapter in the context of reproductive labour. The differences of access to rest mediated by gender has been researched in both leisure and sleep studies. Williams (2011) lists inequalities in access to sleep when it comes to factors like parenting and caretaking, that is often considered women’s role even today. This role’s impact on sleep has been widely studied, and for example Arber and colleagues (2009) and Arber and

Meadows (2013) present that women are more likely to be negatively impacted in their sleep than men. Intersecting with socioeconomic status (Arber et al., 2009) and caregiving (Arber & Meadows, 2013), women seem to have poorer sleep than men do. This has also been presented in leisure studies; for example, Deem (1986) and Mattingly and Bianchi (2003) present that women’s access to free time and leisure activities are hindered because of the reproductive labour they engage in. Williams (2011) also refers to a nationwide study in the UK, stating that “women are worse sleepers than men.” (ibid., p.12), referring to a capability to sleep rather than regulated by social factors.

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2.2.5 PRODUCTIVITY AND REST, A CONCLUSION

In the intersection of productivity - as the resemblance of neoliberalism - and leisure, we can assume that what was once described as “non-productive” activity is not that anymore. As explained above, the economisation of human life has also affected our linguistic practices. One of the consequences for this is the usage of “productivity”, as it is understood in economics: as a measure of output of the unit in a given timeframe. While it can be debated whether or not this is the sole meaning of the word we use casually, it is worth looking at how this concept can translate to our lives. Productivity means that an individual is

optimising their time to get more done, and to use their time wisely. With the expectation of maximum productivity (maximum value) we are driven towards the 24/7 lifestyle that assumes that we try to be as productive as possible at all moments - through neoliberalism, productivity on its own is valued higher than the product itself (Brown, 2015).

Sleep and leisure do also intersect, mediated by economisation: in multiple studies of tourism and hotels, it is pointed out that the quality of sleep and the possibilities for it are a prioritised marketing strategy (Baudrillard, 1998). Traveling for leisure is often more about social norms than about the freedom for doing nothing. Resting on a holiday is considered socially

legitimate only if it entails a beach and people around you. As pointed out with power napping, the notions of productivity have colonised the realm of rest also: it is now used as a time optimised tool for increased productivity.

The passivity of rest compared to leisure (and sleep to some extent) is what I will rely on in my definition of the term “rest” or “resting” further in this paper. I argue that this passivity is exactly what is at the same time challenging and countering the neoliberal governance of the self. I conceptualise rest as recovery, and as an active choice to do so. It is disciplined by managing our time and trying to guilt our ways into not doing something. I conceptualise rest as unproductivity, that intersects with leisure, but does not equal it. It includes sleep but isn’t exclusively sleeping. Resting, such as recovering, daydreaming and lounging can be seen as an act against the neoliberal conduct and a way of exercising freedom from the expectation of productivity. With being lazy, unproductive and not stressed, we exercise freedom from governmentality and distance ourselves from the requirements for productivity.

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3. THEORETICAL APPROACHES

As I referenced in the introduction, I argue that rest is a discursive construction, victim to neoliberal governmentality that renders it invisible because of the lack of immediate profit gained. In this chapter, I will explore the theoretical foundations behind this argument. This chapter is genealogically organised. Based on the notion of the reality being constructed in interaction, I start with an overview of poststructuralism, through which I position myself on questions of ontology and epistemology. I trace the theoretical aspects and work that are relevant to the topic; starting from the primitive accumulation to modern day biotechnology, I will map out the theoretical perspectives that relate how rest is seen in society. I will also elaborate on how these theories intersect with rest and gender, as well as the subjective and material realities.

My theoretical perspectives rely heavily on those of Michel Foucault’s. I partly use

Foucault’s theories to explain how social constructions such as rest are able to take place and what kind of forces impact on the way these constructions are shaped and regulated.

Particularly his work on biopolitics (Foucault, 1990), governmentality (Foucault, 2004) and subjectification (Foucault, 1990) are of relevance here. The effects of the rise of extractive capitalism is accompanied with Foucault's theories of liberalism and developed to

neoliberalism. 2

3.1 POSTSTRUCTURALIST STRUCTURE

Throughout my thesis I have, and will, rely on a poststructuralist understanding of the world. Instead of the structuralist notion of a universal truth or a natural state of being, I do not see the world as given, but constructed, produced and reproduced in interaction between people as the subjects of the society (Belsey, 2002). In a structuralist approach the object constructs the subject, but poststructuralists see that the subject does not exist on its own but is created through interaction. This also leads to the notion that objective knowledge does not exist,

2_{To see neoliberalism through both the lenses and understandings of Marxist and Foucauldian}

theories seems contradictory considering that they approach neoliberalism from and through very different foundations. Brown (2015) offers an alternative understanding: instead of trying to mix these two together, one should stand between them, and relate to neoliberalism through both lenses individually. Without one or the other seeing better than the other, they can even be seen as helpful to one another: revealing what has previously stated as the invisible powers or identifying the theories of economisation.

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since all knowledge is constructed through interaction and therefore of subjective variance. Language has a central role in meaning making - instead of being based on ideas, ideas are considered to be produced and reproduced through language. This meaning making takes place in a specific context, words - and other signs - are not seen to exist in themselves, but gain meaning through differentiation. Instead of reducing complexity to for instance binary oppositions, poststructuralism focuses on diversity and unrestricting. Contrary to the reality constructing interpretation, reality and interpretation are seen as constructed through

discourses. What this means though is that the mechanisms of power impact on how reality is constructed and who is constructing it: what is normalised and who benefits from it. As I have introduced in the beginning of the thesis, I will be examining the visual construction of rest in the videos3_{. This idea of practices or objects as signifiers is also based on a}

poststructuralist notion of meaning making (Belsey, 2002). The construction of rest is interpreted by the individual both textually and visually, and in combination of the two. Along with Foucault’s tools, I do not consider discourses only entail linguistic elements, but also a repertoire of practices, as much productive of the discourse as the linguistic

counterparts. What also needs to be stated is that these constructions are not value free but carry in them explicit and implicit meanings loaded with discursive concepts.

While the subject in poststructuralism is seemingly created in interaction and therefore through linguistic practices, the subject cannot be completely reduced to its conceptuality; the layers of materiality and embodiment cannot be overseen. Seen for example through

Foucault’s work being based on material bodily practices, the linguistic processes have a foundation in bodily practices.

3.2 SOCIAL REPRODUCTION STARTING CAPITALISM

Unlike Foucault, who sees current forms of neoliberalism and biopower to be born from liberal governmentalism and state’s role as the normalising actor, Marxists see neoliberalism

3_{In the chase of defining rest and finding how others define it, I am confronted with the}

poststructuralist ideas of ontology of the virtual, complex background of Rest. As argued by Foucault (1981) among others, the representations of rest are what can be analysed and comprehended in interaction, not the virtual Rest. While the actual representations and the virtual are intertwined, they cannot be separated from each other. Hence, through examining the social rules and symbols that make the foundation for our everyday constructions of rest both linguistically and in practice, I have focused on the actuality of rest.

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as an ideology that roots to capitalism and the ever-expanding accumulation of wealth by the capitalists.

Before focusing on Foucault’s genealogy and theories of power, the historical approach I chose requires a look further back: Foucault does not explicitly state the reasons for the rise of biopower, but feminist Marxist theories of primitive accumulation can explain these through the control of reproduction starting with the witch hunts and slave trade - just to name a few. The American and Italian scholar and activist Silvia Federici (2004) approaches the rise of biopower as a result of the 16th and 17th century population crisis in combination with the European witch-hunts. To combat the population crisis, the state’s intervention took new forms; humans started to be seen as human capital, a form of resource. Through forms of disciplining and surveilling procreation, especially women were exploited under the notion of gain of the population. Primitive accumulation, which Federici (2004) sees as the beginning of early capitalism, starting with enclosures and other strategies for the expropriation of land, changed the ways of living. With the land being owned by the upper class and used for the good of the market instead of the individual, extractive capitalism started to take place. Before the privatisation of land, the proletariat only answered for themselves. The division of productive and reproductive, as well as productive and nonproductive, did not exist - now, to an ever-expanding extent, common areas were seen as a source for lack of productivity - productivity for the market. Escalating in the upcoming centuries, the limitations of leisurely activities, such as sports and festivals, were taking place. While also contributing to the social coherence of the workers, these regulations can be seen as a way to reduce unproductive activity and focus the workforce towards a market-oriented activity, limiting possibilities for rest.

Federici argues for the role of reproductive labour as the forced enabler of capitalism (2004, 2013). While the male proletariats’ bodies were disciplined and exploited through labour, the female bodies were mainly exploited through reproduction. The exploitation of women’s bodies as (re)generating the labour force was what allowed the capitalist accumulation to take place. By removing the value of (re)producing those who produce capitalist value, women as unpaid workforce is a fundamental cornerstone to unequal division of capital. Including both the procreation and maintenance of the male proletariat, labour force was being extracted from women - both in a literal sense where the control of birth was taken from women, and hence allowed the extraction of new labourers, but also as a confinement in the sphere of the

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home. With the time outside wage labour considered the time for “recovery” and “true life” for the male proletariat, the female proletariat does not get the same possibilities for rest. Engaging in a labour consisting of feeding and caretaking, women were not considered to have the same rights for exercising their humanness as men do. Busy with raising their children and men, women’s access both to rest and sleep are affected by the forced position of domestic labour. The time that is considered to be “free” for the male labourer is indeed not free for the female - the construction of practices of rest and recovery do not exist in the same sense with reproductive labour as they do with productive labour. Starting with Marx himself4_{, reproductive labour can be considered as not-work, and if rest is defined as a break,} or the lack of productive labour, then the person performing reproductive labour is not due the rest.

3.3 MANAGING POPULATIONS AND BODIES

Challenging the conformist philosophical traditions of absolute knowledge and values and through the reconceptualisation of ideas such as power and subjectivity, to name only a few, Foucault presents a new understanding of poststructuralism. The interactive understanding of these ideas as a relation and as a network, as well as their historical development allow us to see all the contributors to the modern forms of power (Taylor, 2010).

During the 17th century, a shift in the structures of power started to change: the sovereign power of rule started to form into a two-factor power of the population, divided into micro and macro. This new form of the state was relying on what Foucault (1990) called the anatomo-politics and biopolitics. Anatomo-politics saw the “body as a machine” (1990, p. 139), where the body5_{was moulded to the use of the rising capitalist ideology through} processes of optimisation and disciplining. Biopower can be exercised through the management of the population through a motivation of well-being and positivity (Rose, 2001). While the disciplinary anatomo-politics focused on the individual bodies, biopolitics was focusing on the entire population of the species, rather than a singular body. The factors

4_{Federici (2013) points out that social reproduction is utterly missing from Marx’s texts and theories,}

basing this argument on the lack of considering reproductive labour as “work”. Through this, social reproduction and thereby women’s unpaid work went completely under the radar for Marx to consider as a platform for exploitation - or for revolution.

5_{Foucault majorly defined the man as a body that can be disciplined, and left aside the theorisations}

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of survival, such as mortality and birth rates as well as the (expected) length of life were now matters of politics, that took place “through a series of interventions and regulatory controls” (Foucault, 1990, p. 138). In other words, the political regime and the structure of power shifted from the rule of the population through the individual to the rule of the individual through the population.

The sovereign power, uninterested in the lifestyles of the population, were exercised through a logic of “let live, make die”, while biopolitics is understood as “a power to foster life or disallow it to the point of death” (Foucault, 1990, p.138). The power to disallow life to the point of death can also be referred to as necropolitics (Mbembé & Meintjes, 2003). Focusing on the right to make someone killable has been the way in which the sovereign has been seen to exist and express its power. In the time of biopower, the power to make killable,

necropower, has taken multiple forms from racism to Nazi camps to governing citizens. Making killable today is more than just the technologies of war - it is about governing the citizens through internal and external norms and discipline, where factors such as time are a privilege and a lifeline. The same ideals that are behind racisms contribute to the withholding of inequalities that affect the rates of mortality. With factors such as sleep deprivation being proven to be lethal at worst and harmful to say the least, who suffer the most are the ones deprived of time: the one’s working long days and responsible for reproduction. Through the constant pressure for increased productivity, the time to recover and express our individuality has been reduced to the bare minimum.

Some widely researched current implications of biopower revolve around issues of torture and racism (see for example Clough & Willse, 2011). These examples, while being common, are extreme forms, and biopower can take place on a more micro-level of life. Besides the violent level of population control, biopower has extended its infiltration to the very mundane bodily practices -- eating, sleeping, procreating and resting. Biopower has expanded “into the very construction of its subjects, into their bodily routines and the essence of their selfhood” (John Comaroff, as cited in Death, 2017, p. 206).

3.4 BOTTOM UP, NOT TOP DOWN

Following the work of Foucault, the shift towards biopower was a shift from sovereignty to governmentality (Brown, 2015). The sovereign power of death turned into mechanisms of

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disciplining, and biopower - the mechanisms of regulation (Foucault, 2004). In contrast to the sovereign’s external power, this new form of governmentality is exercised internally and through networks instead of physicality. While biopower became the dominant form of power, disciplinary mechanisms still exist in society; biopower that focuses on the species and controlling the population is exercised by the state, and disciplining individuals is exercised by authorities such as the educational system, health care and the military. Besides these authorities, governmentality is exercised on the level of institutions, such as in families and schools, through different technologies of strategies, tactics and calculations, aimed to manage the behaviour and manners of existing humans (Rose, 1998).

These technologies that are aimed towards the population are a governing power that materialises through policies, practices and “expert knowledge”. According to Rabinov and Rose (2006) biopower rises from a three-point platform: these strategies for intervention, truth discourses (generated and upheld through institutions and the population), and

subjectification. Foucauldian subjectification can be defined as a form of subordination where the subject is made through the discursive practices (of subjection) to work on the self. This one-dimensional approach is complemented by the American philosopher Judith Butler (1993) who sees that while the subject is created or created themselves in these discursive norms, they are able to navigate the norms by reiterating their relation to the rules. Foucault developed the term governmentality to explain the relation of the subjectification and the external power over it, meaning how the individual makes themselves a subject to the state’s rule or to the politico-economic regime (Agamben, 1998). This was to show the ways of regulation that the individual exercises on themselves within the boundaries given by the regulatory norms. Subjectification does not mean the opposite of freedom though, merely that the individual defines themselves in the regulated platform given by the governing power (McGushin, 2010). The process of subjectification is also a productive one: the subjects obtain an identity through this process which Foucault (1990) referred to as a “reverse” discourse. This enables the subject to identify through this alternative discourse and gain a (new) sense of legitimacy.

What Foucault (1988) called technologies of domination turned into technologies of the self. While subjectification can be seen as an individual practice, individuals and institutions also govern each other, internally and externally. The technologies entered the institutions of ‘life itself’, such as the homes and workplaces and aim to optimise the lives of humans towards

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the specific goals. Bodily practices, such as resting, are regulated not only by the state and the subject themselves, but by others in these institutions, such as family, teachers and other professionals. Biopower today has taken a form of trying to make productive bodies and minds (Death, 2017).

Foucault (1990) has used the concept of confession to build his genealogy of sexuality and the impact that this Christian practice has had on its development. The confessional that allowed the creation of specific truth discourses with sexuality and subjects the individuals to a “higher power” keeps on expanding to all areas in our lives - and has gained new platforms such as YouTube videos. Through showing one’s life, revealing “secrets“ and confessing “sins”, the videos and their authors contribute towards the creation of the specific discourse, catering towards the acceptance or stigmatisation of specific behaviours or thoughts. Deeply internalised, we confess without paying attention to it, as a natural way of exercising power onto ourselves. 6

3.5 DISCOURSES WE CREATE

The new kind of power, not rooted in the sovereign, takes place through individuals and institutions; it is seen in culture, habits, customs, norms and language just to name a few. This power is not just repressive, it is also productive - and it produces realities, discourses and subjects (Foucault, 1991). Foucault sees power as a relation that does not exist in itself, but always in a sociohistorical context.

While Foucault’s work on discourses is often described to be inconsistent and complicated, the concept continues to be one of the best-known tools of his career. Discourses are often referred to as the ”ways of thinking and speaking of aspects of reality” (Cheek, 2012). This reality on its behalf consists of truth discourses: what is recognised as the truth i.e.

knowledge. What this “knowledge” entails and what is considered to be the truth is the relation of power that Foucault (1991) refers to. Discourse does not equal power though;

6_{Also, the panopticon and the surveillance as an immediate metaphor has gotten new meanings}

through the lens of the camera when individuals “reveal” their personal lives that have usually remained explicitly private, such as sleeping and resting. Especially in the Western society, sleeping is considered an extremely private practice, compared to for instance Japan, where napping in public is commonly exercised (Williams, 2002).

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while there can be dominating discourses (such as the medical one in Archaeology of Knowledge) discourses can as well be alternative and challenging, existing without an external power. As mentioned with subjectification, the subject takes upon themselves different positions from the possibilities given by the discourse (Foucault, 2002).

Discourses are thereby produced by this power/knowledge pair, and gain material forms in the way we express them. Foucault’s discourse differs from other perspectives on the term with its holisticity and flexibility: it is not just a linguistic term, but manifests in all social relations. Foucault sees “discourses [not] as groups of signs (signifying elements referring to contents or representations) but as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak” (2002, p. 54). In other words, discourses are not just elements of language, but are also constructed through practices relevant to specific discourses. This aspect of

discourses is particularly applicable in the discursive construction of rest: whether we rest or not, and how we do it takes place in a framework set for instance by neoliberalism. The practices of resting are formulated and allowed according to specific truths and knowledge claims; very practical examples being the time of sleeping one should have, or whether or not a healthy adult is allowed to take naps. Even the construction on “healthy” and the practices that follow it are a part of the particular discourse.

What is central in Foucault’s work in the discourse is who and what can be said or implied. Like the doctors of the medical field (Foucault, 2002), every discourse has a set of privileged groups, individuals or professionals who have the power to regulate and define the discourse and the truths within it. As with the medical discourse, the discourse supports institutions, which, as explained above, exercise the disciplinary power. Foucault (1990) explains the birth of new terms regarding sexuality rising from the discourse that was answering the needs of the state.

3.6 THE ROLE OF NORMS

Normalisation is a concept and a term that Foucault has focused on: rising from the concept of power/knowledge, the combination of disciplinary power and the truth discourses, it establishes “normalising judgement” (1991, p. 184), which drives individuals towards the specific normative practices and concepts. With the development of the concept of biopower, Foucault saw a shift in how these norms worked. Taylor elaborates that norms are where

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disciplinary and biopower meet - norms both disciplines bodies and facilitates power and engage in “mak[ing] normal” (2009, p. 52). Even though being in the core of modern power, the relation between norms and normals, as well as the relation of norms and subjects, is a dialogical one, rather than all-encompassing. This means that not all norms are forms of disciplining or regulating, and “[i]t is therefore the sedimentation of power through the uncritical acceptance of particular norms as natural and therefore necessary that is cause for concern. “ (Taylor, 2009, p. 53). This kind of sedimentation can be seen for example through expectations of productivity and resting - through the years the idea of productivity

encompassing the entirety of our lives has become a requirement in the background, a normal state of being that is not criticised or even unnoticed.

3.7 HOMO ECONOMICUS, AND ONLY THAT

In his later work, as seen in the 1979 lectures, Foucault (2008) started to relate biopolitics to the American regime of neoliberalism of the time. He based the notion of the

entrepreneurship of the self on the change of capital and labour to human capital, where income cannot be separated from the individual. His understanding of the neoliberalism’s rise roots to liberalism, and how the governance of freedom developed into what we now consider to be biopolitics and neoliberal governmentality (Brown, 2015).

As noted in the introduction, my understanding of neoliberalism closely follows that of Wendy Brown’s (2015). She, following Foucault, sees neoliberalism as a governing factor that has spread economic conduct, including values, practices, language and metrics among others, to politics and further into the everyday life of humans. Neoliberalism, unlike liberalism, has taken the process of economisation even further - the conduct takes place in spaces and factors that were not considered economical before. Neoliberalism is

all-embracing; we become homo economicus and only that, where entrepreneurship of self is the only option. Homo economicus refers to the form of existing (zoe), where humans have become human capital, and lost their political and juridical ways of existing.

Even though called economisation, this process does not always mean monetisation. It is also related to how economic conduct turns us into market subjects, and therefore spreads the conduct into decisions and perspectives about our quotidian lives, such as hobbies, relationships and education. The entrepreneur, the human capital, is only concerned about

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their current and future value, and how to increase it. Every practice and relation are seen as a decision to further better your life resume, and it extends way past work. Now including dating, leisure and education among many, the entrepreneur is aiming to be as productive as possible through different practices of rating and ranking (Brown, 2015).

It also follows us to the realm of rest. In that realm, like in all others, the economic conduct interpellates us to maximise the present and future value of the action (and of ourselves). This means that the value of rest has to be as productive as possible. Practical examples of this are the trend of meditations and mobile mediation applications, where you are promised that your daily need for rest can be packed into 5 minutes of breathing, or “power napping” to regain your productivity from sleepiness. Without trying to diminish the positive value of

meditation, I argue that the culture is counterproductive and has been predisposed to a wide scale monetisation and commercialisation. As Brown (2015) notes, productivity is seen as more important than the product itself in the eyes of neoliberalism.

The transformation of biopolitics towards neoliberal governmentality is further fuelled by the development of technology (Clough, 2018). Taking forms of the mentioned sleep

laboratories, or personal fitness trackers in one hand and what is referred to as “regulatory ideals” (Butler, 1993) on the other, biopower needs “continuous regulatory and corrective mechanics” (Foucault, 1990, p.144). Through the advancing technological interventions, personal bodily functions are constantly monitored towards a normalised regulatory ideal, such as where, when and how to rest. As I discussed in Chapter 2, the sleeplessness/sleep deprivation pandemic that has taken place as a “national” phenomenon in the US is another materialisation of biopolitics. The extension of biopower towards the realm of sleep and rest is another way of regulating individuals on the premise of public good and public health. Through the normalised surveillance that is exercised by the individual on themselves we create optimal circumstances for economisation.

3.8 PRODUCTION AND LIFE ARE INSEPARABLE

Discussing this development of technology, the critical thinker and scholar Melinda Cooper (2008) goes beyond the economisation of life and discusses the relation of biological

(re)production and capital and argues that they are inseparable. Unlike in Marxist capitalism, the state does not regulate the economic market, but instead enforces the sphere of economics

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in all parts of life, thus enabling the conditions for capitalism to thrive. What neoliberal capitalism aims to do is to erase the separation of production and life, which further

contributed to the existence of human capital. Humans and their physical and mental energies are considered to be an extractable resource, now taking place in the levels of cells and genes. Cooper (2008) underlines capitalism's nature of aiming to overcome any limits while also reimbursing new ones. Translating well into the ideology of neoliberalism and the biotech industry, the need to surpass biological and ecological limits in the name of constant growth remains a priority. The development of technology and specifically biotechnology go hand in hand with the popularity of neoliberalism - the inseparability of capital and biology remarks the relation of these two. The biotechnological advances of neoliberal capitalism at the same time renders human capital closer to other forms of capital in the way it profits from us (Braidotti, 2013) and as self-optimising projects of enterprises (Brown, 2015). I do not see these as mutually exclusive - while human capital is profited from as extreme forms as a cellular level, the project of optimisation guarantees that the product is in as good of a

condition as possible when harvested. As I argued above about life’s reduction to zoe, human and animal (non-human) life is similar in the way we are both treated only as capital by the neoliberal capitalism (Braidotti, 2013).

With the capitalist accumulation moving to the realm of life, the bodies themselves to the smallest part have become measured through their value to the production. Like the example of oil resources that Cooper (2008) takes up, we can consider the human bodies being drilled past their limits with a promise of better times as a way to surpass the limits to capitalist accumulation and growth. With neoliberalism building on the promises of the future, we are drilled like oil past our reserves. Indeed, considered a “national reserve”, social reproduction has become state regulated and owned. The never-ending growth of neoliberal capitalism needs human labour as a capital that it can reproduce itself - this disposability of humans as a resource can be seen as a factor why productivity is considered to be the all-encompassing aspect of the entirety of our lives. This disposability takes place through extracting the usefulness of human capital to the last drop, after which we are no longer a concern for the capitalist. “I will sleep when I am dead” is the cornerstone for this kind of life, where the promise of rest in the future is taken to the absolute and represents the extent of the productivity requirement as well as how rest is seen. Only functioning to guarantee the exploitability of the human capital, rest functions as a necessary evil that, as argued in the previous chapter, is being governed by the society. Through a combination of capitalisation

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and concern, rest and sleep are considered necessary to boost or allow productivity or as an individual responsibility to minimise the potential harm it might cause to the capitalist structure.

3.9 REST, SUBJECT AND THE BODY

While the extent of this thesis is not allowing me to focus on the biological or physical effects of (the lack of) rest, I want to discuss the possible effects of a theoretical level. If we follow the logic of neoliberal governmentality turning humans into an always-available form of capital, the room for rest, where we are not available for productivity, is non-existent. Like Butler (1989) discusses, the internalisation of practices, such as economisation, creates a metaphor of these practices being inscripted into the body, while she sees them being inscribed onto the body. The body becomes a material representation of economisation, like the bodies of prisoners were a material representation of the historical discipline; “the body becomes a useful force only if it is both a productive body and a subjected body” (Foucault, 1991, p. 25). Focusing on the term ‘productive’, if rest is constructed as the opposite of productive, the resting body becomes useless. The useless body can be further seen as the abject body. Butler discusses this concept in an interview (Meijer & Prins, 1998), where she explains that bodies materialise and matter only when they are inside the discursive

boundaries, and that abject bodies become immaterial, unnamed. As Butler notes in the interview “[...] bodies in fact carry discourses as part of their own lifeblood” (Meijer & Prins, 1998, p. 282). The body has a central role in Foucault’s work (see for example 1990 and 1991): the body is owned, disciplined, punished and regulated. Developing terms such as docile bodies, Foucault devoted a lot of his work on the genealogy of the body and how it is connected to different forms of power. With all the other topics above touching on bodies, the focus on resting bodies is indeed needed. Just like sexuality over time, rest has been

developed through a socio-historical context and regulated to serve the purpose that benefits the state.

Especially sleep is seen as a non-conscious, non-reflexive and non-subjective practice (Fuller, 2018). Considered a passive state of dormancy that lacks the “thinking as being” aspect, sleeping subjects become reduced to sleeping bodies. When reduced to their materiality, sleeping or resting bodies are also reduced to the material meaning of their practice, as touched earlier in this chapter. Fuller explains how capitalism’s grasp over sleep “plug[s]

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sleeping life into regimes of work that see relaxation or sleep in particular as something to be condensed into a manageable unit, not lingered over” (2018, p. 92). Sleep is reduced to the simplest and optimised form of existence.

Almost as if it was an excuse, sleep’s unconscious state is somewhat unreachable by the likes of capitalism and neoliberalism - the lack of subjective control over sleep makes it also uncontrollable by these external factors to a certain extent. Rest that does not equal sleep is both conscious and does not fill a specific purpose of survival, and thus is easier to reach and eliminate by both internal and external governance. By reducing sleeping subjects into sleeping bodies we also reduce the purpose of rest to its material and biological qualities. Through this, sleep is seen as the recharging time it takes for us to be functional again - and everything beyond that can be seen as waste and unnecessary. The rendering of a subject as unproductive can also include what Foucault (1990) referred to as the reverse discourse: through the definition process the resting individual, instead of being seen and feeling unproductive or worthless to the capitalist society, can use their position to go against this notion. Considered to fight the neoliberal productivity, the resting individual can claim the right to own their own time and therefore their own capital.

3.10 SUMMARY AND RELEVANCE

With biopower over the body focusing on productivity and economic profit, it is apparent how it can be applied to the practices of rest and resting. Like Foucault (1990) theorised about the biopolitics reducing sexuality to procreation (among other things), it is no wonder that rest is seen as a waste of time, and reduced to sleep, the reproduction of labour power. The machine rests to recover itself to a state of usefulness, since other rest is not needed. The creation of the individual as the “machine” allowed the processes of governmentality over the population to take place. The governmentality, exercised through policies, practices and experts, regulates how the individual understands their existence. With the further

development of biopolitics through technology, the creation and regulation of life is gaining new forms. The sleep laboratories mentioned earlier are a great example of how the lives of humans are generated and managed through the life sciences. How rest is understood is governed by the institutions and through subjectification by the population itself. What is understood as licit or illicit, allowed or disallowed is thereby seen as the discursive truths and inscribed on the living bodies.

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With politics focused on life itself and on the well-being of the population, the knowledge and the power this exercised had physical consequences on the body. The way rest was seen and conceptualised from a biomedical and later neoliberal standpoint had physical

consequences on the way rest was (not) practiced. As seen in Chapter 2, the discourse around rest (and leisure and sleep) has immediately affected the way rest is thought and practiced. The discourse has developed its own truths and governs the subjects to follow these

regulations, first through institutions and further into society. Through a process of glorified fitness and productivity, the truth discourses regulate the behaviour around rest, leisure and sleep. Rest and sleep have become a means through which people subject themselves to governmentality and self-optimisation and -control. They have become a realm for highly capitalised measures and practices.

Since discursive truths can render other possible discourses invisible or even unimaginable, it can be argued that the neoliberal discourse has rendered the world of rest invisible - we are unable to imagine situations where rest can be part of our daily lives. While the technologies for regulating rest are not researched, the technologies governing sleep are. Examples of this were discussed in Chapter 2, such as how napping is allowed only for the sick, elderly and children, thus how the “optimised” population should not be practicing it. Sleep laboratories with their optimised sleeping timeframes and durations are making sure that we rest exactly the amount that is needed, and we are given everything from medication to alarm clock to make sure we fit in the norm. The way that sleepiness as a phenomenon has travelled from the institutions to the population and created a phenomenon of its own is pointed out in the study by Kroll-Smith & Gunter (2005) and encapsulates the way in which power works in biopolitics. Leisure’s function, from fitness to beach holidays, is governed the same way to upkeep the wellness and the desired state of productivity in the society. The sleeplessness epidemic is an enlightening example of both the work of biopower’s priorities as well as the immediate effects that these technologies have on the body itself. The social constructions of laziness and unproductivity that create the illicit, abject bodies are another way of biopower regulating the life of the species.

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4. METHOD

Considering that in the definition process of my research topic I am relying heavily on the Foucauldian theories, I consider Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA) to be an appropriate continuum to this process. While it might blur the boundaries of theory and method, it will create a constant structure to build the concept of rest on. Foucault’s theories are often referred to as a “toolbox” (see for example Taylor, 2010), which is how I approach the relation of the theories and FDA as a method. Its flexibility in what is considered a text or a textual event allows FDA to be used on a variety of fields and with a variety of materials, including visual representations such as images or videos (Willig, 2008). I will complement FDA with semiological visual analysis, which functions as a continuum to elaborate the visual aspects of the material.

Throughout this section I will refer to “text”, “textual event”, “image” and “video”,

depending on what the original source used. These all comprehend the visual and linguistic elements in the studied YouTube videos.

4.1 FOUCAULDIAN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

While Foucault himself refrained from creating a method for discourse analysis, FDA roots to his work (Cheek, 2012). The fundamental difference to earlier approaches to discourse analysis is Foucault’s definition of the term discourse. Discourse is seen as the relationship between power and knowledge more than a single “thing” itself, and how this relation is produced and productive of reality. As Willig (2008) points out, a Foucauldian discourse analysis inherently should also contain a genealogical approach, this means a historical perspective to the development of the discourse. Since rest, and the discourses affecting it, do not have a history of research, I will focus on the (possible) ways that the neoliberal regime have affected bodies and how that has possibly changed.

FDA, like multiple other discourse analysis methods, requires the acknowledgement of a specific discourse that dominates in a given context (Cheek, 2012; Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002). In this paper I will examine how the neoliberal discourse and its project of economisation produces how rest is conceptualised in YouTube videos about rest. I will follow Willig’s (2008) framework for FDA in my research. The acknowledgement of the

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discursive constructions, such as ‘rest’ in this paper, is considered as the first step of FDA, followed by the mapping of the possible different discourses that manifest in the material. After the initial analysis of the discourses, FDA looks at action orientation, positionings, practice and subjectivity. Action orientation reflects the profit or use of drawing on a specific discourse - what is the motivation behind the referred discourse. Besides the textual event, FDA focuses on the situatedness of the text, meaning the historical, social and cultural context that the textual event is located in, also called intertextuality7_{. This situatedness is} seen as both productive of the discourse, while the discourse is also producing a specific version of said contextual situation (Cheek, 2012). Subject position reflects who can say what and when, while subjectivity is more about receiving what has been said, and revolves around the legitimacy of specific experiences, feelings and practices. The access to a specific

discourse can also be regulated; for example, productivity is often defined only by experts, and certain certifications give validity to the importance of “rest days”.

For this paper, the analysis of the relationship between a discourse and a practice is going to be a major focus; rest is a great example of how certain forms of practices manifest the discourse they are in. For example, the lack of a permission to rest is a practice that reflects the neoliberal discourse, while also producing it.

4.3 SEMIOLOGICAL VISUAL ANALYSIS

To cover all the aspects of my material, I will combine FDA with semiological visual

analysis. Visual methods have been a requested topic in sociological research and while there has been an increased interest and motivation for a visual approach in the social sciences (Rose, 2014), these methods and sources of data have remained somewhat ignored (Holliday, 2000).

I will approach my material with a (critical) framework presented by Gillian Rose (2014). This framework is made to map the possible theoretical perspectives that can be taken in relation to the image, and it is often debated of the order of priority of the sites. The framework consists of the site of production, the content of the video itself, the site of

7_{Intertextuality is often associated with critical discourse analysis (see for example Fairclough, 1995),}

but is widely used by the social sciences (Shank, 2008). Intertextuality (Kristeva, 1986), aims to explain the dialogical nature of texts, that instead of existing in vacuum, exist in relation to each other. This process can take place between different sign-systems, such as narratives, texts or visual scenes.