Urban Poverty, Structural Violence and Welfare Provision for 100 Families in Auckland

Abstract

Socioeconomic inequalities are increasing in many OECD countries, as are punitive welfare reforms that pathologise ‘the poor’. This article draws on the accounts of 100 families in Auckland to consider the impacts of increased social stratification and structural violence on their interactions with a government welfare agency. Each family was recruited through a food bank and was matched with a social worker who used a range of interview, mapping and drawing exercises to document their experiences of adversity over a one-year period. The analysis sheds new light on how institutionalised and abusive relations with these families manifest in spatially located urban interactions. It is argued that poverty is misrecognised at the institutional level and that this nurtures structural violence in service provision interactions.

Resistance or resignation to welfare reform? The activist politics for and against social citizenship

“…Cumulatively, increased conditionality, sanctioning and welfare withdrawal has made it more difficult to secure the social rights of citizenship and has caused significant hardship as a result (Hodgetts et al, 2014). Across both studies considered here, individuals drew upon a range of strategies to overcome the material and symbolic marginality arising from welfare reforms (for further details see Humpage, 2015a;Edmiston, 2017 (Rob, 2007-08) ÒYou canÕt get credit, canÕt get Ôhire purchaseÕ.…”

“…Alongside increasing workrelated and social obligations, benefit sanctions and welfare withdrawal have created new modes of control, marginality and subordination (Jones et al, 2013;Hodgetts et al, 2014). This article examines what impact these exclusionary practices of citizenship are having on the political subjectivity of welfare claimants (Turner, 2016).…”

Introduction: Neoliberal Culture / the Cultures of Neoliberalism

“…Most importantly, the charity model also inflects the perceived role of the state, as entitlement to social provision goes from being an inherent human right in a decent society to a discretionary boon of government, subject to individuals meeting obligations to participate in the market. State agencies are now empowered to exact such a high level of monitoring and invasive control over the daily lives of the poor that the relationship between the central state welfare agency and its clients in New Zealand has been likened to an abusive intimate relationship (Hodgetts et al, 2014). Meanwhile, a constrained economy of austerity, sharing and 'make-do' is re-emerging, along with a new science of the 'scarcity mindset' (Mullainathan and Sendhil, 2014).…”

Living with HIV in regional Queensland: social ties, care and support in managing a long-term complex chronic illness

“…Some participants have embodied persistent discrimination, akin to the welfare recipients in Auckland, New Zealand, who reacted to the persistent discrimination from the welfare system with fear, depression and anxiety, mistrust, helplessness, reduced dignity and, ultimately, avoidance [254]. Similarly, some participants in my study reported high levels of mental health issues and selfisolation 110 .…”

“…Within the semi-public space, they have experienced discrimination where they lived: in their social housing and in their regional location. Stigma and discrimination at all these levels are pervasive, patterned forms of violence [254]. Kleinman (2000) argues that this type of violence, of "an ongoing, patterned, emplaced and embodied aspect of larger structural system of inequity in society" [255, page 15], which is "rooted in…accordance with the moral filament of society" [256, page 1144] may be the most pervasive.…”