Shifting faces of the state: austerity, post-welfare and frontline work

2019 ◽  
pp. 41-68
Author(s):  
Rachel Humphris
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
The State ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
Frontline Workers ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
Migrant Families ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Uk

This chapter presents the position of frontline workers in the UK welfare state who are tasked with caring for new migrant families. The chapter is underpinned by a theoretical discussion of the ‘relational state’ and conceptualisation of ‘the frontline’. It emphasises the importance of integrating the intimate space of the home into debate on relational encounters. The chapter presents the notion of ‘everyday discretion’ to describe the situated decisions that frontline workers had to make in the face of ethical dilemmas. These areas of discretion and uncertainty allowed sentiment to overtake rights and created individualised and fragile relationships of care. These decisions drew on and were justified through frontline workers’ own life histories, cultural discourses and their own understanding of performing the ‘good citizen’ within a post-welfare state. This chapter acknowledges that frontline workers themselves have multiple ‘roles’, including being mothers, and may also have experiences of migration or marginalisation that shaped how they ‘make up’ the state for Romanian Roma mothers. This chapter identifies the unexplored issues of race, migration background and citizenship status in discussions of class in relation to home inspectors and examines institutional factors in the power dynamics of the domestic visit.

Food charity and the changing welfare state

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Lambie-Mumford
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Food Markets ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Food Standards ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Food Charity ◽  
Access To Food

Chapter 7 looks at the role of the state and examines the changing nature of the UK welfare state and the impact these changes are having on the need for and shape of emergency food provision. The chapter argues that social security and on-going reforms to it are impacting on need for emergency food in two key ways: through changes to the levels of entitlement; and problematic administrative processes. Furthermore, the consequences of welfare reforms are impacting on the nature of these systems. As the level of need is driven up, projects are re-considering their operations, contemplating logistics and means of protecting projects’ access to food. At a local level, particular reforms appear to be embedding local welfare systems which increasingly incorporate local food projects.The question of the state as duty bearer is discussed. By right to food standards the welfare state can be considered a vital aspect to both fulfilling and protecting people’s right; but the state’s role is much broader, encompassing action in relation to labour markets, commercial food markets and other spheres where it could exercise influence to respect and protect people’s human right.

scholarly journals The “Pull Factor” Problematization in the Emergence of Everyday Bordering in the UK Welfare State

Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 93
Author(s):  
Mike Slaven
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Pull Factor ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Control Failure ◽  
Elite Interviews ◽  
The Uk ◽  
State Interventions ◽  
British State

The “everyday bordering” concept has provided key insights into the effects of diverse bordering practices upon social life, placing the bordering of the welfare state among wider state interventions in an autochthonous politics of belonging. Sociological contributions have also introduced new explanations as to why states pursue such measures, positing that neoliberal states seek legitimacy through increasing activities to (re)affirm borders within this politics of belonging, compensating for a failure to govern the economy in the interests of citizens. To what extent is this visible in the state-led emergence of (everyday) borders around welfare in the United Kingdom, often cited as a key national case? This article draws from 20 elite interviews to contribute to genealogical accounts of the emergence of everyday bordering through identifying the developing “problematizations” connected to this kind of bordering activity, as the British state began to distinctly involve welfare-state actors in bordering policies in the 1990s and early 2000s. This evidence underlines how these policies were tied to a “pull factor” problematization of control failure, where the state needed to reduce various “pull factors” purportedly attracting unwanted migrants in order to control immigration per se, with little evidence that legitimacy issues tied to perceived declining economic governability informed these developments in this period. These findings can inform future genealogical analyses that trace the emergence of everyday bordering.

Raciolinguistic border-making and the elasticity of assessment and believeability in the UK citizenship process

Ethnicities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146879682097144
Author(s):  
Kamran Khan
Keyword(s):  
Language Testing ◽  
Family Reunification ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Requirement ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Multiple Assessment

Citizenship testing in the UK assesses the applicant’s knowledge of English and of life in the UK as part of a legal requirement. This testing is one part of the British citizenship process which also creates other forms of assessment for applicants that function as bordering techniques. This paper demonstrates how these non-test forms of assessment emerge, in some cases, before the citizenship test through pre-arrival language testing for non-EU spouses and family reunification. They also take place after the citizenship test through citizenship ceremonies and post-ceremony passport interviews. The data is drawn from a four year project examining the experiences of those experiencing the citizenship process. Using the notion of raciolinguistic perspectives and Derrida’s metaphor of the Shibboleth, I show how the individual may stand in the face of judgment in various forms through their interactions with the State. The multiple assessment points in the naturalisation process beyond the main test itself enforce the need for ‘believeability’ of the applicant who must submit themselves to be assessed – in some cases, repeatedly.

Romanian Roma mothers: labelling and negotiating stigma

2019 ◽  
pp. 73-98
Author(s):  
Rachel Humphris
Keyword(s):  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Previous Experience ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
The Third ◽  
Migrant Families ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Uk

This chapter examines the position of new migrant families to the UK and how they come to be perceived as Romanian Roma; the generative and coproduced nature of labelling; the symbolic violence that is accomplished through this label; and how it comes to hold currency in the UK state apparatus. The first section of the chapter focuses on how the label developed. The second section charts how being categorised in this way led to home encounters through the particular lens on child safeguarding. The third section of this chapter considers how mothers’ understanding of their position and room for manoeuvre were shaped by their backgrounds such as illiteracy and previous experience of state violence. The chapter examines how encounters came to contribute to the mutual constitution of respective identities and how these shaped understandings of, and fears and desires for, the state.

Housing precarity and advanced marginality in the UK

2019 ◽  
pp. 145-162
Author(s):  
Kelly Bogue
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The State ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Dissatisfaction ◽  
Private Housing ◽  
Housing Benefit ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Urban Marginality ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter presents concluding remarks about the impacts of the Bedroom Tax. It reflects on the processes through which housing insecurity is generated and how this is playing a central role in increasing urban marginality. It does so by drawing on studies about rising housing precarity and homelessness to consider how both the social and private housing sectors have been responding to reductions in housing benefit. This chapter argues that we need to re-consider how and in what ways the struggles over housing are being played out at the local level and how this can generate divisions in and between different groups. Particularly when people are re-negotiating a welfare state that is undergoing deep systematic reorganisation. It considers the relationship between austerity policies and their role in creating political dissatisfaction with the state of UK politics. Especially in areas where the full impact of austerity measures have been felt.

Environmental Transformation of the State: The USA, Norway, Germany and the UK

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Dryzek ◽  
Christian Hunold ◽  
David Schlosberg ◽  
David Downes ◽  
Hans-Kristian Hernes
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Environmental Conservation ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Environmental Transformation ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Capitalist State ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Welfare State

Modern states underwent two major transformations that produced first, the liberal capitalist state and second, the welfare state. Each was accompanied by the migration of a previously confrontational movement into the core of the state. In the creation of the liberal capitalist state, the bourgeoisie could harmonize with the state's emerging interest in economic growth. In the creation of the welfare state, the organized working class could harmonize with the state's emerging interest in legitimating the political economy by curbing capitalism's instability and inequality. We show that environmental conservation could now emerge as a core state interest, growing out of these established economic and legitimation imperatives. This examination is grounded in a comparative historical study of four countries: the USA, Norway, Germany, and the UK, each of which exemplifies a particular kind of interest representation. We show why the USA was an environmental pioneer around 1970, why it was then eclipsed by Norway, and why Germany now leads in addressing environmental concerns.

scholarly journals Foreign report: Psychiatry in Israel

1988 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 273-275
Author(s):  
J. P. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
The State ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Mental Problems ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Psychiatric Problems

Seven years of ecstasy and agony have been enjoyed and endured in Israel, and from the calm of my sabbatical back in the UK, I welcome this opportunity to look in on Israeli psychiatry. The setting is a dramatic one. Israel's recent history is characterised by a hard-won statehood in 1948, massive waves of immigration, a clash of oriental and occidental cultures, and repeated wars. In the face of this rapid and traumatic change, Israelis have exhibited an exaggerated faith in the powers of the state. By denial of emotional and mental problems, a somewhat brittle stability has been achieved, not enhanced by almost uniformly negative attitudes to mental disorder. Understandably Israeli psychiatry has also been characterised by the fight for survival. The professional scene is made up of fierce, creative, one could almost say “true grit” individualists and powerful professional cliques. Israeli psychiatry was literally forged on the battlefields of the Independence War and has retained an Old Testament character of war-like struggle up until the present day. It is to the credit of Israeli psychiatrists that they have succeeded at the highest level in dealing with routine psychiatric problems alongside the awesome consequences of this continuous stress and trauma.

scholarly journals Mutating faces of the state? Austerity, migration and faith-based volunteers in a UK downscaled urban context

2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Humphris
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
The Face ◽  
Intimate Relations ◽  
The Uk

This article explores how austerity combined with the UK Government’s expressed aim of creating a hostile environment, reshaped policy and practice towards new migrants in a downscaled urban area. There is an assumption that volunteers come to govern in zones the state has ceded or abandoned. However, how volunteers come to undertake these roles, their discretionary power and the consequences for state theory have not been fully explored. Drawing on 73 interviews with local state actors and volunteers and in-depth participant observation over 14 months with more than 200 new migrants, this article argues volunteers become the ‘face of the state’ for new migrants with direct effects. Volunteers have wide discretionary power and negotiate uncertainty by falling back on religious values and local narratives of migration forging new practices of governance. This article makes two contributions to theorising the state. First, the economic position of a city and narratives of place shapes who gains legal status and state membership, adding to literature on the relationship between civil society and the state in neoliberal contexts. Second, seemingly mundane actions and intimate relations have immediate implications for political membership. This represents a system of governance that relies on assessments of behaviours in new migrants’ everyday lives rather than rights or entitlements. This article unpacks these assessments and explores the consequences for volunteers and new migrants alike.

Power and politics in migration narrative methodology: Research with young Congolese migrants in Uganda

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Clark-Kazak
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Young People ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Narrative Research ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Personal Boundaries ◽  
Migration Narratives ◽  
Narrative Methodology

This paper explores the power dynamics inherent in qualitative research involving migration narratives. Drawing on the author’s experiences collecting life histories and constructing narratives of Congolese young people in Uganda, this article addresses the ethical and methodological issues of representivity, ownership, anonymity and confidentiality. It also explores the importance of investment in relationships in migration narrative research, but also the difficulties that arise when professional and personal boundaries become blurred.

From the “Judicialization of Politics” to the “Politicization of Justice” in the UK and Switzerland

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-135
Author(s):  
Lucia Della Torre
Keyword(s):  
General Rule ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Specific Field ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
Judicialization Of Politics ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Migration Law

Not very long ago, scholars saw it fit to name a new and quite widespread phenomenon they had observed developing over the years as the “judicialization” of politics, meaning by it the expanding control of the judiciary at the expenses of the other powers of the State. Things seem yet to have begun to change, especially in Migration Law. Generally quite a marginal branch of the State's corpus iuris, this latter has already lent itself to different forms of experimentations which then, spilling over into other legislative disciplines, end up by becoming the new general rule. The new interaction between the judiciary and the executive in this specific field as it is unfolding in such countries as the UK and Switzerland may prove to be yet another example of these dynamics.

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