Paradoks kontrolera. Wywiady indywidualne jako sposób zarządzania biednymi
The Supervisor’s Paradox: Uncertainty and Institutional Constraints in the Control of Welfare Recipients

Summary/Abstract: Control has become an instrument of social policy, to the extentthat the procedures that define it are in turn playing a role in meetingthe objectives that they serve. By focusing on one of these procedures (homevisits to beneficiaries of social safety nets), this article analyzes a specific formof bureaucratic interrogation. By describing its characteristics, its modalitiesand its uses, it seeks to clarify the contemporary institutional treatmentof socially assisted persons. The constraining force of the institution and of itsrules is combined with uncertainty regarding the situation of the controlledpopulation, the modalities of the control itself, and the rules mobilized in itsexercise. The paradox of a control justified by stable legal rules, yet plaguedby uncertainty and the discretionary power of its rank-and-file officers,reveals a broader framework for the governance of the poor. It is built uponthe combination of multiple individualized relationships that are more or lesscoordinated but nonetheless rooted in a structural logic, where the economicinjunction to find a job overlaps with a moral project aiming at redressingthe habituses that do not conform with the requirements of the labor marketand/or with those of the assisting institution.

• Details
• Contents