'Don't be a smart arse': social enterprise-based transitional labour-market programmes as neo-liberal technologies of the self

In this paper we re-visit the work of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and the social enterprise Fifteen Foundation and their development of a programme designed to train unemployed young people in the hospitality industry. We argue, drawing on the Foucauldian literature on governmentality and technologies of the self, that social enterprise-based transitional labour-market programmes can best be understood as neo-liberal technologies of the self that seek to transform persons. In the face of precarious forms of youth labour market participation, the self - the marginalised, unemployed young person - can ill afford to be a smart arse.