Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how the state is actualised through frontline welfare services, specifically those that rely on the work of volunteers. Ethnographic fieldwork conducted at one of these sites explores how volunteers balance empathy for clients on the one hand, and state bureaucracy, on the other.

Paper long abstract:

Welfare delivery evokes images of large institutions that enforce state policy through the guidance of professionally trained social workers and bureaucrats. However, supplementary welfare supports in the form of material aid is delivered through a network of smaller sites such as Emergency Relief (ER) Centres. ER centres provide immediate assistance in the form of food parcels and food vouchers. In this paper, I draw from 8 months ethnographic work at one of these sites. It examines how the welfare state is actualised through front-line welfare delivery. These sites rely on the work of volunteers, who have some independence to use their discretion to distribute material aid. The paper will explore how volunteers, while not having an explicit mandate from the state, ultimately serve the functions of the state. Volunteers are not simply impersonal bureaucrats, they balance the responsibility of delivering material aid 'fairly,' with their inclinations to judge clients with empathy. Volunteers can personalise their dialogue, share personalised advice and advise clients through empathetic dialogue. In doing so they provide some spontaneous counselling while categorising people based on policy to evaluate the person's eligibility for a welfare package. Throughout the paper I will explore how state categories are reproduced through these semi-formal engagements between volunteers and clients.