Unraveling EU Policies: the ““Common Basic Principles”” and the ““European Integration Fund”” as a technology of government

this paper is about EU “soft policies” on immigrant integration. It analyzes the “Common Basic Principles” (CBPs) and the “European Integration Fund” (EIF), two devices that have been recently established within this framework. It adopts the theoretical perspective of the “anthropology of policy” and “governmentality studies”. It shows the context of birth of the aforementioned devices, as well as their functioning and the assessment done by the actors implied in the elaboration/implementation/evaluation of the related policies. It is based both on documentary research as well as direct observation and interviews done to the actors implied. It concludes that the PBC and the EIF should be considered as a “technology of government”, that strives to align the conduct of the actors with the governmental aims, as well as it produces specific practices and knowledge. It also underlines an intrinsic feature of many policies: their “congenital failure”, since they are (often) disputed and resignified by situated actors, who are embedded in asymmetrical power relations.

'An aid to mental health': natural history, alienists and therapeutics in Victorian Scotland

In the nineteenth century natural history was widely regarded as a rational and ‘distracting’ pursuit that countered the ill-effects, physical and mental, of urban life. This familiar argument was not only made by members of naturalists’ societies but was also borrowed and adapted by alienists concerned with the moral treatment of the insane. This paper examines the work of five long-serving superintendents in Victorian Scotland and uncovers the connections made between an interest in natural history and the management of mental disease. In addition to recovering a significant influence on the conduct of several alienists the paper explores arguments made outside the asylum walls in favour of natural history as an aid to mental health. Investigating the promotion of natural history as a therapeutic recreation in Scotland and elsewhere reveals more fully the moral and cultural significance attached to natural history pursuits in the nineteenth century.