Paper short abstract:

Grasping the power dynamics of the state, the lens of gender needs to be expanded. Through the experience of migrantized, precarious single mothers I show that exclusionary, normalized labor market ideologies affect individuals and groups in their intersectionality

Paper long abstract:

My movement-based, ethnographic research is a part of the DFG project Contestations of the 'Social', aiming to develop new perspectives of analysing the Social (State) Regime. The research takes place in the Oldenburg region, where some of Germany’s largest slaughterhouses precariously employ numerous migrants. In this context, I zoom in on the concept of the Arbeitsgesellschaft (labor society), by following the struggles of migrantized single mothers in accessing welfare and other state services. I will discuss, through biographies and ethnographic experiences, the struggles of EU-migrant single mothers (esp. Romanians) who risk losing their status as a welfare claimant but also their right of residency if not recognized as economically active by the state. Mothers thus find themselves in direct conflict with the German authorities while trying to perform carework and conform to the ideological imperative of contribution to the state through labor. Whether it is the Jobcenter refusing to provide aid because of ‘unwillingness’ to work, orthe Familienkasse’s incessive means-testing right of residency, migrantized single mothers have to dodge fraud accusations from various welfare Regime actors.

Through their struggles, this contribution shows how power dynamics created under the ideology of the labor society –which according to scholars such as Fraser (1994), Hirsch (2016) or Lessenich (2012) is (neo)liberally and conservatively rooted – are both gendered and racialized. To, in a truthful sense, recognize the 'gender’ of the state, we must understand it at the intersection of multiple dichotomies of inclusion/exclusion, as Ortner (2022) claims - of which migration is essential.