12 ‘Everywhere and nowhere’: interventions and services under austerity
-
Stephen Crossley
Abstract
This chapter explains how austerity has led to an increasingly fragmented and disparate economy and geography of welfare. These changes have affected people’s ability to access services, leaving some of them isolated and excluded from activities that they previously enjoyed. The chapter then questions the use of new information technology (IT) systems and the related expansion of cybernetic relations to register, administer, manage, and target some of the most vulnerable members of society. It argues that these virtual systems emerge as a way of dealing with cases that need physical and in-depth contact in the context of austerity budgets rather than a tested way of pooling information to save lives. This argument suggests that they can also be a way to exclude service users from decision-making about their entitlement and ultimately their lives, reconfiguring the power relations between the public and the state.
Abstract
This chapter explains how austerity has led to an increasingly fragmented and disparate economy and geography of welfare. These changes have affected people’s ability to access services, leaving some of them isolated and excluded from activities that they previously enjoyed. The chapter then questions the use of new information technology (IT) systems and the related expansion of cybernetic relations to register, administer, manage, and target some of the most vulnerable members of society. It argues that these virtual systems emerge as a way of dealing with cases that need physical and in-depth contact in the context of austerity budgets rather than a tested way of pooling information to save lives. This argument suggests that they can also be a way to exclude service users from decision-making about their entitlement and ultimately their lives, reconfiguring the power relations between the public and the state.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of figures and tables v
- Notes on contributors vii
-
Race, racism and social policy
- Race and social policy: challenges and obstacles 5
- ‘Race’: the missing dimension in social policy higher education? 25
- Young people as cultural critics of the monocultural landscapes that fail them 51
- Returnees: unwanted citizens or cherished countrymen 71
-
Social policy and young people
- The family welfare source and inequality in liberal welfare states: evidence from cohort studies 97
- Economic hardship in young adulthood: a cause for concern or a matter of course while settling into the Swedish labour market? 135
- Cultural education and the good citizen: a systematic analysis of a neoliberal communitarian policy trend 163
- How geographical and ideological proximity impact community youth justice (in)accessibility in England and Wales 183
-
Austerity
- After a decade of austerity, does the UK have an income safety net worth its name? 211
- A new page? The public library in austerity 227
- No way home: the challenges of exiting homelessness in austere times 249
- ‘Everywhere and nowhere’: interventions and services under austerity 271
- Index 291
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of figures and tables v
- Notes on contributors vii
-
Race, racism and social policy
- Race and social policy: challenges and obstacles 5
- ‘Race’: the missing dimension in social policy higher education? 25
- Young people as cultural critics of the monocultural landscapes that fail them 51
- Returnees: unwanted citizens or cherished countrymen 71
-
Social policy and young people
- The family welfare source and inequality in liberal welfare states: evidence from cohort studies 97
- Economic hardship in young adulthood: a cause for concern or a matter of course while settling into the Swedish labour market? 135
- Cultural education and the good citizen: a systematic analysis of a neoliberal communitarian policy trend 163
- How geographical and ideological proximity impact community youth justice (in)accessibility in England and Wales 183
-
Austerity
- After a decade of austerity, does the UK have an income safety net worth its name? 211
- A new page? The public library in austerity 227
- No way home: the challenges of exiting homelessness in austere times 249
- ‘Everywhere and nowhere’: interventions and services under austerity 271
- Index 291
