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Critical Social Policy
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Risk Technology in Australia: The Role of the Job Seeker Classification Instrument in Employment Services

Catherine McDonald

University of Queensland, C.McDonald{at}social.uq.edu.au

Greg Marston

RMIT University, Melbourne

Amma Buckley

University of Queensland

Promoted as the key policy response to unemployment, the Job Network constitutes an array of interlocking processes that position unemployed people as `problems' in need of remediation. Unemployment is presented as a primary risk threatening society, and unemployed people are presented as displaying various degrees of riskiness. The Job Seeker Classification Instrument (JSCI) is a `technology' employed by Centrelink to assess `risk' and to determine the type of interaction that unemployed people have with the Job Network. In the first instance, we critically examine the development of the JSCI and expose issues that erode its credibility and legitimacy. Second, employing the analytical tools of discourse analysis, we show how the JSCI both assumes and imposes particular subject identities on unemployed people. The purpose of this latter analysis is to illustrate the consequences of the sorts of technologies and interventions used within the Job Network.

Key Words: discourse • governmentality • identity • risk • unemployment

Critical Social Policy, Vol. 23, No. 4, 498-525 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/02610183030234004
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