Social Work, Poverty Governance, and the Marginalised Subject in North Central Nigeria: A Governmentality Analysis

Foucauldian governmentality theory offers a powerful analytical lens for interrogating how poverty governance programmes in Nigeria constitute and manage the poor as subjects, and how social work is implicated in these processes of subjectification. This doctoral study applies governmentality analysis to social work practice within poverty governance programmes in North Central Nigeria, drawing on empirical data from Benue, Niger, and Plateau States. A critical interpretive paradigm employing genealogical and governmentality analytical methods is applied to data generated through 45 practitioner narrative interviews, 15 beneficiary life history interviews, and extensive policy genealogy analysis of poverty programme documents. Critical discourse analysis and Foucauldian archaeological procedures are applied. The study's original theoretical contribution is the development of a Poverty Governance Social Work framework that maps the techniques of subjectification operating within cash transfer, community development, and rehabilitation programmes, and identifies social work's contradictory position as simultaneously a technology of governance and a potential site of client empowerment. The study argues that social workers must develop critical reflexivity regarding their role in governance processes that may undermine rather than advance client self-determination. Methodological contributions include pioneering governmentality analysis as a research methodology within Nigerian social work scholarship. Keywords: governmentality, poverty governance, social work, North Central Nigeria, Foucauldian analysis