The art of getting by

Abstract

Chapter 7 draws attention to the modest pursuits and pleasures that sustain a liveable life in hardship but don’t necessarily conform to popular ideas of ‘good resilience’. It argues that research on lived experiences of welfare tends to be reactive in orientation, so that welfare users are more often positioned as adept responders than pursuers in accounts of getting by. The chapter builds on the work of Les Back and Eve Tuck to foreground examples of hope amid the strain of life on welfare without falling into overly rosy accounts of resilience or reinforcing the expectation that people face difficult situations with plucky resolve. While the understated examples of everyday care and accomplishment the chapter foregrounds may seem inconsequential, they are perhaps all the more relevant given the limited resources at the disposal of people struggling to get by.