Cashless Welfare Transfers for 'Vulnerable' Welfare Recipients: Law, Ethics and Vulnerability

Shelley Bielefeld

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

    Abstract

    This article aims to contribute to literature on the conceptualisation of 'vulnerability' and its use by neo-liberal welfare regimes to demean, stigmatize and responsibilize welfare recipients. Several conceptions of 'vulnerability' will be explored and utilised in the context of welfare reforms that purport to regulate social security recipients as highly risky 'vulnerable' subjects. However, as this article will make clear, 'vulnerability' is a somewhat slippery concept and one susceptible to abuse by powerful interests intent on increasing coercive surveillance, discipline and disentitlement for those designated as 'vulnerable'. Legislation enacted ostensibly to address the 'vulnerability' of welfare recipients can foster intensive regulation and it must be asked who benefits most from such arrangements and the rhetoric that supports them.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1-23pp
    JournalFeminist Legal Studies
    Volume26
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2018

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