‘Best in class’ – Healthy employees, athletic executives and functionally disabled jobseekers

SummaryThis paper accounts for health initiatives for employees, competitive sports initiatives for corporate executives, and workability initiatives for functionally disabled individuals. On this basis the paper suggests that health, athletic competitiveness and functional disability have become central markers of employability associated with three bio-politically defined classes. A middle class of individuals that work on their lifestyles and selves to match health and employability ideals; an elite class of individuals that take part in sports activities to prove their ‘true’ competitive nature; finally, an underclass of individuals that identify with their functional disabilities and make use of them opportunistically as resources for getting employment. The paper furthermore suggests that all three initiatives are expressions of a neoliberal governmentality that cancel out the liberal distinction between an economic world of work and a private and social world by inciting individuals to use their lives in full as human capital.