The Responsibilities of the Poor: Performing Neoliberal Citizenship within the Bureaucratic Field

Abstract

Social service providers are increasingly encouraged by their funders to help fashion the poor into neoliberal citizens, and this study investigates how this situation may affect the ways in which service users present themselves to service providers when seeking assistance. We suggest that our interview participants, drawn from vulnerable and marginalized populations of Winnipeg, Manitoba, are attuned to the characteristics of neoliberal citizenship that are increasingly valued among social service providers in Winnipeg. Indeed, just as neoliberal policies pressure social service agencies to embrace accountable, business-like, and individualizing models of service, so too are service users encouraged to adapt themselves to the demands of neoliberalism. In this context, our respondents represented themselves as active, prudent, autonomous, responsible, and entrepreneurial in an attempt to fashion an identity worthy of care within the contemporary bureaucratic field.