Resistance and Accommodation in a Post-Welfare Social Service Organization

Abstract

This article explores the complex and contradictory dynamics of client resistance to organizational rules and staff definitions in a nonprofit microenterprise development program. Micro-Enterprise, Inc. offers training and small loans to economically disadvantaged individuals who want to operate very small businesses. Although claiming to avoid the judgmental aspects of past social welfare programs, program staff recruited the "right type" of client. Individuals who did not conform to these classifications were disadvantaged in the program. Yet, clients were far from passive in these matters. They used fluid and convergent strategies to accommodate, reconstruct, and resist the dominant program discourse. Some strategies were individualistic whereas others were more collective; some strategies produced organizational change; others reinforced negative views of the poor. Over time, concerns about client resistance and funders' perceptions led to a series of program changes. These changes reduced the opportunities for collective client resistance to organizational rules and staff control. These findings also reveal the situated nature of resistance strategies.

Mediators of Opportunity: High School Counselors in the 21st Century

“…Occupational groups we might classify as intermediaries include social welfare and other types of case workers (Garot 2004; Hasenfeld 2000; Hayes 2003; Jurik et al. 2009; Ridzi 2008; Watkins‐Hayes 2009), parole officers (Boyken 2000), vocational and rehabilitation counselors (Maynard‐Moody and Musheno 2003; Negrey et al.…”

“…Occupational groups we might classify as intermediaries include social welfare and other types of case workers (Garot 2004;Hasenfeld 2000;Hayes 2003;Jurik et al 2009;Ridzi 2008;Watkins-Hayes 2009), parole officers (Boyken 2000), vocational and rehabilitation counselors (Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2003;Negrey et al 2003;Otis 2001), public sector job search and job training staff (Grubb 1996;Indergaard 1999;Lafer 2002;Smith et al 2006) and other workforce intermediaries (Giloth 2003). Their jobs share a minimum of seven characteristics.…”

From the Long Arm of the State to Eyes on the Street: How Poor African American Mothers Navigate Surveillance in the Social Safety Net

“…Given that all of my respondents have also engaged with the state welfare system, this study yields important insight into how women navigate multiple options over time as their circumstances fluctuate, and how they draw on past experiences in considering where they might turn in the future. By foregrounding women’s perspectives, this analysis also sheds light on what the organizational practices and policies of state and nonprofit social service providers look like when they “touch the ground” and, importantly, how the poor engage with, interpret, and sometimes resist them (Jurik, Canvender, and Cowgill 2009; Luna 2009; Nicoll 2015).…”

Whose Feminism? Whose Dilemma?

“…I was surprised at her surprise that the poor women who engaged in the program she studied exercised agency regarding “their marital preferences when faced with the government’s pro-marriage message” (416) since feminist scholars have long emphasized women’s agency in a variety of social settings. Perhaps Randles has not read the same literature as I would have found most useful in her case study, namely, the literature on the contradictions of the state and the agency of welfare workers and their clients, despite the challenges they face (see, e.g., Jurik, Cavender, and Cowgill 2009; Kelly 1994; Naples 1998; Wagner 1990). Staff who are charged with the implementation of marriage promotion or work training programs for poor women and their families are often themselves situated within the communities they serve.…”