Discipline and Care in the Hybrid Job Centre

Abstract

In this paper we examine how care and discipline are weaved together when unemployed people on public benefits experience Danish jobcentres. The analysis is based on qualitative interviews with 27 social assistance claimants. We identify different experiences of care and discipline as co-existing in the daily practices of the jobcentres. We conceptualize these composite experiences as “hybrids” and extract three recurrent hybrid forms: (a) an actor-based hybrid where clients distinguish between caring and disciplining actors respectively. (b) A system-actor-hybrid where the “system” is considered to be disciplining while specific employees are considered to be more caring. (c) And – finally – a temporal hybrid where clients’ experiences contain temporal phases characterized by care and discipline respectively. Understanding such hybrids is important for understanding the complexity of employment services as well as for understanding the experiences and the agency of claimants who are regularly in contact with jobcentres.