Front-line workers, or street-level bureaucrats, who interact directly with clients, have significant discretion over clients’ lives. Drawing upon ethnographic observation in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya and interviews with aid workers, I argue that front-line workers are not a uniform group. I examine three types of front-line aid workers (international, national, and refugee), who work directly with refugee clients. Workers use day-to-day work practices to structure where, when, and how they interact with refugee clients. Yet, workers at the bottom of the organizational hierarchy are less equipped to use these practices. As a result, they are vulnerable to increased criticism and accusations of corruption from co-workers and are uniquely affected by criticism from the refugee client community. By examining their day-to-day work practices, this paper illuminates how inequalities in power among workers contribute to differences in work practices and vulnerability in workplace interactions.

We thank the refugee families, aid workers, and volunteers who shared their experiences. Maria Odongo, Mirriam Chemutai, and Frida Aloo were exceptionally talented research assistants who helped carry out interviews with refugee families.We also gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2022 Russell Sage Foundation conference "Administrative Burdens as a Mechanism of Inequality in Policy Implementation." We are grateful to the feedback of conference participants, especially from the editors. We are also thankful for the input from the doctoral student writing group at the