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Examining the interaction between families and professionals in the child welfare system of New York, this book focuses on how inequalities are reproduced, measured, managed, and contested. The book describes how state institutions and neoliberal governance police the groups which are most represented in the child welfare system, including low income, female-headed families living in racialized neighborhoods. The book also shows how these forms of policing produce unstable terrains, and give rise to contestation among families, communities, and professionals. It questions and re-thinks how state welfare and protection is administered.
“The book is very good … The work is serious, original, thorough, and solid. It represents highly skilled and serious scholarship.” • Halvard Vike, University College of Southeast Norway
“The book is in an insightful and thorough analysis of how oppressive dynamics are generated and understood, and how inequalities intersect in the child welfare system in the US.” • Hanne O. Mogensen, University of Copenhagen
Viola Castellano is Senior Research Associate at the Chair of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Bayreuth. Previously, she worked at the Department of Education of Bologna University and at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning. Her research interests revolve around ethnography of institutions, welfare and migration policies, borders externalization and global inequalities.
List of Abbreviations
Chapter 1. Guilty of Being Poor: A Brief Itinerary in the Recent History of American Welfare
Chapter 2. What Does 'Racial Disproportionality' Mean and How Is Tackled: Genesis, Interpretations, and Practices
Chapter 3. Revolving Door: The Work of Child Welfare in Making Parents Chronically Unfit
Chapter 4. Contesting Child Welfare: Perceptions, Negotiations, and Counter-Narratives
Chapter 5. The Moral Economies of Community Participation: New Forms of Governance and Representative Ambiguities
Conclusions
References
Index