Shaping the democratic, relational, and reflective youth recreation leader

Abstract

Youth recreation centres have been a key institution in providing young people with meaningful activity after school, going back to the mid-twentieth century in Sweden. These centres have been the focus of research, but very few studies have paid attention to the youth recreation leader, the person working in these centres. In this article, we direct our focus towards youth recreation leaders by analysing how a discourse on the ideal youth recreation leader takes shape through policy, how it operates, and with what effect. We are inspired by the work of Foucault in understanding discourse, power, and subjectivity. Our analysis illustrates how a democratic, relational, and reflective ideal youth recreation leader is shaped and fostered through current policy discourses in Sweden. Such a subjectivity emerges through technologies of power and the self, of which the confession is one. Through the confession, the youth recreation leader is simultaneously governed and governs others–the conduct of conduct. The case presented here can tell us more about the way in which governing operates in contemporary society.