Paper short abstract:

Street level bureaucrats who counsel victims of fraud face the task to navigate complex situations of trust and mistrust in which personal, institutional, and cultural dimensions overlap. The paper invites to reflect on this broader context of affective and emotional relations in counseling.

Paper long abstract:

Scams and fraud are not uncommon in informal settlements in Argentina. Especially newcomers from other countries fall victim to this type of crime. Legal counselors who operate in these neighborhoods are usually unable to offer a legal solution to such cases. Instead, they urge the migrants to become aware of different cultures of (mis)trust and suggest developing a sense of suspicion and generalized mistrust to prevent further abuses.

At first glance, it seems as if they thus also undermine an important goal that street level bureaucrats usually pursue: building trusting relationships between citizens and public agencies.

It shows however that mistrust is not necessarily conceived as a socially disruptive feature but is understood by street level bureaucrats as a basic prerequisite for survival in the Argentinian society. Still the legal counselors propose to rely on formal contracts and to put trust in the Argentinian legal system. This suggestion seems paradoxical since the rule of law is particularly fragile in these informal settlements and the justice system does not provide adequate solutions for problems of legal plurality.

Analyzing the different dimensions of trust and mistrust in such counseling situations this paper discusses the affective and emotional relations of street-level bureaucrats with their clientele and the challenges they face when navigating between informal and formal principles and often contradictory cultures and requirements of (mis)trust that relate to the personal encounter, the local community, and the state.