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Failing, writing, litigating: daily practices of resistance in Belgian welfare bureaucracies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2022

Sophie Andreetta
Sophie Andreetta*
Affiliation:
FRS-FNRS Research Fellow, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Liège, Belgium
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper builds on ethnographic fieldwork in Belgian welfare administrations to identify daily practices of resistance among Belgian ‘welfare bureaucrats’ who interrogate the new welfare and immigration law reforms that further restrict migrants’ access to social assistance. The contestation strategies are used to circumvent and sometimes break the formal and informal policy guidelines while still allowing them to perform and remain loyal to the state and to higher principles such as a commitment to the fundamental right to human dignity. Three main contestation strategies are identified: failing to provide certain services to demonstrate the absurdity of certain guidelines, writing reports against the administration and in favour of the user, and encouraging litigation against the federal agencies that employ them. These strategies show Belgian welfare workers’ commitment to providing a form of public service that aligns with their professional ethos rather than enforcing specific government policies.

Keywords

welfare lawanthropologyethnographybureaucracymigration
Type
Special Issue Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 18 , Special Issue 3: Politicised Bureaucrats: Conflicting Loyalties, Professionalism and the Law in the Making of Public Services , September 2022 , pp. 317 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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