Economic Recovery for Whom? Jobs, Business, and Homo Oeconomicus in BC’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan

This qualitative study examines how neoliberal rationality is reproduced and reinforced, in addition to how certain lives are centered while others marginalized and excluded, in British Columbia’s COVID-19 pandemic economic recovery plan titled “Stronger BC for Everyone”. Utilizing Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, this study found that neoliberalism is sustained in this recovery plan through the discursive centering of jobs, business, and homo oeconomicus–the productive, self-interested, and entrepreneurial “economic man”. This paper also proposes that the realities of marginalized subjects and demands for radical alternatives are repackaged to uphold neoliberal rationality, leaving palpable silences on the realities of those who are the most marginalized throughout this pandemic. These reconfigurations and silences further entrench the hegemony of neoliberalism as the only common-sense solution to the existing inequities. Furthermore, this study illustrates the importance of re-politicizing social work and the need for more research radical alternatives to neoliberalism.