Andrew Flood posted Ronit Lentin’s talk on “Biopower, Race and State in contemporary Ireland” recently. Since then a few people have either said to me face to face or online that they don’t get the concept. I’m not sure that I get it either, but maybe its like Irony – impossible to explain but you know it when you see it. And I’m pretty sure this is it:

Workers judged to be lonely and to have a chaotic home life could be barred from working with vulnerable people, even though there is no evidence that they pose a risk, according to guidelines from the Government’s new vetting agency… If a teaching assistant was believed to be “unable to sustain emotionally intimate relationships” and also had a “chaotic, unstable lifestyle” they could be barred from ever working with children. If a nurse was judged to suffer from “severe emotional loneliness” and believed to have “poor coping skills” their career could also be ended.