A Cry for Care But not Justice: Embodied Vulnerabilities and the Moral Economy of Child Welfare

Abstract

This study explores the pivotal role of the body for political recognition and rights claims in child welfare “moral” interventions. I examine how the bodily figures in child welfare assessments, linking these manifestations to the concept of the moral economy of care. A sample of assessment reports from a Swedish municipality, all addressing violations of children’s bodies or integrity, are used as empirical material. I show how the psychosomatically suffering child is being best “heard” as vulnerable. I also argue that such a moral economy of care silences children’s accounts of gendered and racial injustices. Furthermore, racialized moral divides are indicated when assessments of different child bodies are considered. A concluding remark points to a need for a child welfare moral economy of social justice that responds to structural intersecting injustices in childhoods, including to those of a racialized child welfare and its individualized and symptom-oriented services.

Keywords

child and family welfare gender-based violence race and ethnicity social justice vulnerability

The body is said to constitute the political battleground for social in- and exclusion (Bacchi & Beasley, 2002; Butler, 2016; Fassin, 2010/2012a; Puggioni, 2014; Rose & Novas, 2005; Ticktin, 2011b). Hence, claims for recognition, rights, and societal support, as well as subjugation of human beings into subjects, go through the body (Rauscher, Kauer, & Wilson, 2013; Rose, 2001). Some commentators refer to a distinct moral economy that responds to suffering biological bodies but fails to react to violations of civil, political, and social rights and bodily integrity. Consequently, psychiatric diagnoses or symptoms are foregrounded when responding to what might as well be assessed as social injustices and inequalities, such as child sexual abuse or exposure to gender-based and racial violence (Fassin, 2010/2012a; Ong, 2006; Rose & Novas, 2005; Sweis, 2017; Ticktin, 2011c).

In this study, I examine the moral economy in the context of child welfare moral responses to embodied vulnerabilities in childhoods. I analyze assessment reports from a Swedish municipality that address verbal, physical, psychological, and sexual forms of violations of children. Additionally explored is the moral economy in relation to children’s eligibility to (protective) welfare services; hence, the recognition and rights claims available for children as embodied service users in a welfare state.

Juxtaposing care with justice issues, “the social” and political, this study is in dialogue with critical anthropological scholarship on biopolitics (Fassin, 2010/2012a; Ong, 2006; Rose & Novas, 2005) and feminist ethics of care (Clement, 1996; Sevenhuijsen, 1998; Tronto, 1993). It adds to social work as a “caring profession” and simultaneously a profession devoted to equality, social justice, rights, and antioppressive practices (Dominelli, 2002, p. 1; Herz & Johansson, 2011; Mattsson, 2014; Pringle, 2010).

The article indicates that contemporary Swedish child welfare practice, in terms of assessment procedures and suggested welfare services, offers limited ways of tackling multilayered and intersecting structural vulnerabilities in childhoods (see Pringle, 2010, 2011). I refer to a prevailing moral economy of care (Watters, 2007), which associates vulnerability with psychosomatic suffering and offers individualized responses as solutions to largely depoliticized problems. The moral responses at play toward different child bodies reflect racialized differentiation while at the same time discrediting vulnerabilities to violence as a result of complex intersections of gender, race, and age.

Embodied Vulnerabilities in a Moral Economy of Care

In contexts widely ranging from rights to freedom from violence and violations of bodily integrity to practices of in- and exclusion and resistance, the body plays a pivotal role for political recognition, right claims, and claims for support (Bacchi & Beasley, 2002; Butler, 2016; Fassin, 2010/2012a; Mbembe, 2003; Puggioni, 2014; Rose & Novas, 2005; Ticktin, 2011b). With the concepts of biopolitics and biopower, research has drawn attention, in particular, to the rights to life, health, and well-being and the new political sites of struggle of, primarily, biological bodies (Fassin, 2010/2012a; Foucault, 1976/2002; Petryna, 2002; Wells, 2011).

The anthropologist Didier Fassin (2010/2012a) links these developments to the notion of moral economy. Moral economy here refers to “a web of unequal relationships of exchange based on a morality of reciprocity, mutual obligation, and protection” (Ong, 2006, p. 199). In a child welfare context, the concept would refer to the moral sentiments, values, norms, and principles that serve as a basis for the protection or distribution of welfare resources. While social injustice denotes the wrongful that may also cause harm (Fricker, 2007), what I here refer to as a distinct moral economy of care (Watters, 2007) recognizes primarily the biologically harmful. In this usage, compensations for damaged bodies or recognition of “corporeal vulnerability, somatic suffering, and genetic risk and susceptibility” links to wider principles, sentiments, and values of care and compassion (e.g., Fassin, 2010/2012a; Ong, 2006; Rose & Novas, 2005, p. 442; Sevenhuijsen, 1998; Ticktin, 2011a, 2011b; Watters, 2007). The moral economy of care acknowledges vulnerabilities as biologically “innate” (cf. Meyer, 2007) and disconnects from social justice, equality, and rights discourses. It downplays the “lived” body in a society shaped by structural and intersecting relations of power (Burman, 2017; Ong, 2006; Sevenhuijsen, 1998; Tronto, 1993, 2013).

In this study, I take a critical stance toward the aforementioned moral economy and its underpinning biologism and “politics of pity” (e.g., Burman, 2017; Fassin, 2005, p. 336; Ticktin, 2011b). Drawing on a social constructionist intersectional framework, this study views childhoods as embedded in and shaped by the socially constructed yet materially significant and “embodied” categories of age, gender, race, class, sexuality, and other axes of differentiation (Knezevic, 2017; Burman, 2017; Mattsson, 2014; Mehrotra, 2010; Ringrose & Renold, 2010; Wells, 2011). I approach vulnerabilities as products of structural injustices rather than individual misfortunes. Thus, bodies, including those of children, are seen as structurally vulnerable to ageist, racialized and gendered violations, injustices, and discriminatory practices (Fassin, 2010/2012a; Mattsson, 2014, Ong, 2006; Ticktin, 2011c) but also privileges (Ringrose & Renold, 2010).

In line with critical social work scholars (Dominelli, 2002, 2010; Herz & Johansson, 2011; Mattsson, 2014; Mehrotra, 2010; Pringle, 2010, 2011; Williams & Graham, 2016), this study adds to contributions calling for sociopolitical transformations and alternative approaches where equality and social justice are the guiding principles for acting upon the world.¹

Context and Methodology

Sweden has been the first country to introduce the ban against corporal punishment of children in 1979. It states that children “are entitled to care, security and a good upbringing.” Children, furthermore, “are to be treated with respect for their person and their individuality and may not be subjected to corporal punishment or any other humiliating treatment” (Parental Code, Chapter 6, Swedish Code of Statutes [SFS 1983: 47]). According to The Social Services Act (SFS 2001: 453), the local government handles the welfare and protection of its residents, including children. Violations of the corporal ban should lead to a child welfare case opening. A case may close with compulsory care (under the Care of Young Persons Act, SFS 1990: 52)—or as in the focus of this study—a voluntary (supportive) service or without provision of services altogether (SFS 2001: 453). The main difference is that custodians and children from 15 years of age can reject voluntary care, once recommended by social workers, while this is opted out for compulsory care. Another difference is that protection for a child under the Swedish Care of Young Persons Act requires risk for the child’s health and development (SFS 1990: 52).

With the aim to provide systematization and equal assessment regardless of municipality, child welfare professionals in almost all municipalities in Sweden use the framework assessment BBIC (Swedish abbreviation for “Children’s Needs in Focus”). The framework is inspired by the British Integrated Children’s System (Knezevic, 2017; National Board of Health and Welfare [NBHW], 2006, 2013, 2015/2018), which was initially launched by the UK Department of Health. It was developed after acknowledging that children in care did not always fare well and had poorer health compared to other children (NBHW, 2006). This trajectory suggests that a health-oriented approach to equal opportunities has been prominent from the start of the assessment frameworks like BBIC.

This study is approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Uppsala (2014-350). It follows a qualitative collective case-study design (Creswell, 2007) and is guided by the theoretical framework. The analysis of purposefully sampled cases below is developed against the backdrop of the analysis of the material as a whole consisting of 283 BBIC-guided assessment reports. The assessment reports closed in the year 2015 and were collected in a middle-sized municipality in Sweden. They addressed children up to 12 years of age. A BBIC-guided assessment report usually included a summary, the headings “Child Development,” “Parenting Capacity,” “Analysis and Assessment,” and “Decision.” One of the central headings in the BBIC triangle, “Family and Environment,” was rarely used in the reports included below.

During the initial readings, I noticed many assessment reports closing “without service.” Also, violence seemed seldom responded to with services dealing with violence issues explicitly (e.g., Östberg, 2010).² Some of the identified vulnerabilities linked to girls only, and I found no assessment reports addressing violations of gender nonconfirming bodies, homo-, or transphobia. Furthermore, what I below refer to as simultaneously racialized and gendered violations in school was commonly addressed as “bullying.”

A key question was to understand the prevailing moral economy of child welfare as it manifests through child welfare moral responses to embodied vulnerabilities of children. Critical anthropological research helps to discern the moral dimension of responses, that is, the distinct mobilized sentiments and principles. It seeks to answer what a certain moral economy does, that is, the act of responding to or not responding to a certain vulnerability (e.g., Fassin, 2012b; Ong, 2006; Ticktin, 2011a). As outlined earlier, I examine the “moral” in responses to violations that are relatively open to interpretation, both as misfortunes of individual biological bodies, and structural vulnerabilities. In the context of bodily integrity violations, the violation per se may be responded to as the main problem (wrongdoing), but also its symptoms (harm), may evoke a response. This distinction, commonly referred to as deontology versus consequentialism (Fassin, 2012b), allows an analytic delineation between justice-based responses (i.e., law, rights) and a moral economy of care. However, care-oriented responses may overlap with social justice and equality issues, hence are not always possible to discern in a clear-cut way (Clement, 1996; Sevenhuijsen, 1998; Tronto, 1993; Wells, 2011). The present analytical approach is nevertheless particularly fruitful when studying “moral tensions” (Fassin, 2012b, p. 3) such as care versus justice.

To understand situations leading to child welfare interventions, I contrasted compulsory care cases with those recommending voluntary service and/or closing without service (Knezevic, Forthcoming). At a later stage, I excluded assessment reports that are regulated by the Compulsory Care Act due to the Act’s emphasis on risks to “health and development.” A close reading of voluntary care cases made visible responses not restricted to the biologically informed conceptions of vulnerability. Thus, the reading that followed went beyond the mere question of whether any service was recommended. The focus was also on the violations addressed, the recommendation given, if any, and whether the child’s situation is likely to change or remain intact.

After reaching saturation concerning the variation of embodied vulnerabilities found in the material, six cases were included in a purposeful maximal sampling (Creswell, 2007, p. 75). Those cases demonstrating moral tensions were included in instances where multiple case reports addressed the same theme. The cases are based on seven assessment reports concerning six children (attending preschool and elementary school). Seven different social workers conducted the assessments. The assessment reports address violations to children’s bodies and embodied selves—some of which are the reason for case opening: child maltreatment, verbal violence, witnessing violence, sexual abuse, and gendered and racial violations.

Additional steps consisted of comparing and contrasting cases with similar problems and different outcomes or vice versa (e.g., Creswell, 2007). I used this strategy to show variation, to test the theoretical propositions drawn on, and strengthen the consistency of the findings within and across multiple assessment reports. A social constructionist intersectional framework adds another layer to the analysis. A strategic use of the axes of differentiation of age, gender, and race and, at times, class and sexuality helps to analyze intersections between multiple dimensions of dis/advantage within and across the thematic cases (cf. Gruber, 2007; Mehrotra, 2010). This intercategorical approach to intersectionality is combined with a poststructuralist lens, which sets child welfare responses in wider contexts of “interconnected systems of inequality” (Mattsson, 2014; Mehrotra, 2010, p. 423). For instance, the institutional configuration of biopolitical neoliberalism, the prevailing construction of vulnerability (Burman, 2017; Eriksson, 2009; Fassin, 2010/2012a; Ong, 2006; Sweis, 2017; Wells, 2011), and national discourses about (gender) equality and child friendliness (Ong, 2006; Pringle, 2010, 2011) are considered. In this way, I attempted to provide a more complex description of the issue under study (Creswell, 2007), that is, the moral economy of child welfare as it manifests through responses to embodied vulnerabilities.

The selection, contrasting, and parts of the interpretations have been presented for, and discussed with, a wider national and international research community, for verification (Creswell, 2007, p. 341). All children are given pseudonyms and some details are left out or changed to protect confidentiality. Leaving out some contextual information along with the analytical focus on the bodily limits the intersectional analysis that would otherwise be possible if responses to parents, socioeconomic status, children’s school performance, different ethnic minorities, and so on were studied in greater depth (but see Gruber, 2007).

The analysis starts with one critical case illustrating the distinctive conditions for a child welfare response to take place and serves as a springboard for the cross-case analysis (cf. Creswell, 2007). The other cases show some common patterns in child welfare responses and lack thereof (Creswell, 2007). The translated passages below display the various ways in which embodiment figures in the investigations and are followed by an analysis of the underpinning moral economy. Together, these cases are illustrative of the prevailing moral economy of Swedish child welfare practice.

The Psychosomatically Suffering Body

Although the section “Health” is not included in the assessment of the 8-year-old Ada, health occupies a central role in the text. Health issues become crucial for a shift to take place from the presumed abuse of Ada by mother to Ada’s suffering due to visitation with the father. This case highlights the child’s embodied version of the issue, although Ada’s accounts do not get much room in the assessment report. In the section “Assessment and Analysis,” it is for instance stated:

The school has seen a nervous girl before the daddy-weekends and that on Mondays after daddy-weekends she is pale, tired and sometimes has headaches.

[The psychologist] makes the assessment that Ada is exposed to extreme stress and psychological vulnerability and that her anxiety is psychosomatic.

The passages depict a psychosomatic sufferer (e.g., Sweis, 2017, “biological sufferer”) through observable psychosomatic symptoms (“pale,” “tired,” “nervous”; “headaches,” “stress and psychological vulnerability”), as described by her psychologist and teachers. Health shapes the vocabulary through which various health professionals convey Ada’s wish not to see her father. The Social Services conclude:

Given the overall picture of Ada’s situation, that her mother took the initiative to provide Ada with [the counseling], that the mother sought care for [Ada’s] tension headache, that the mother sought help for Ada at [child psychiatry] and was involved in the contact with the psychotherapist, and given that the prosecutor decided to close the case concerning suspicions of abuse, the Social Services make the assessment that there is no concern regarding the mother’s harming Ada. Additionally, the mother takes the responsibility for Ada not to visit her father at the moment partially because Ada herself says she does not wish this and her mother’s assessment that [Ada] should not, partially because [child psychiatry] makes the assessment that Ada’s health is at risk because of her visitations with her father.

Following both a criminal law logic and questioning family law decisions, the Social Services show ambivalence toward judicio-moral principles. Simultaneously, a moral economy of care is prominent as Ada’s guardians are assessed in terms of their care provision and the active enhancement of, or conversely, harm to Ada’s health. Together with the closed prosecution, the mother’s initiatives to get Ada in contact with health care and her care for the psychosomatically suffering child rule out the suspicion of abuse. Thus, going against the legal authorities and supporting the mother in denying the father visitation with Ada seems to be a legitimate course of action when he is jeopardizing Ada’s health and well-being.

What is outstanding with this case is that it displays a vulnerability that the Social Services are responding to seriously. While no services are recommended other than those already initiated by the mother, through a significant reduction of visitation time, Ada’s wish is granted and she no longer is obliged to meet her father as extensively as before.

The construction of vulnerability in the present case associates with a passive girl-child. This is reinforced through a neoliberal logic and the gendered responsibilization for care, that is, the mother’s active involvement (e.g., Burman, 2017; Ong, 2006; Tronto, 1993, 2013). As will be discussed below, a parent’s ability to involve or oppose health professionals, school personnel, or a (former) partner is crucial for a child welfare response. This is nevertheless restricted to particular contexts and families, suggesting interlinkages between the moral economy of care and classed, racialized, and gendered aspects.

The Medicalized Body

Both a moral economy of care and references to legal concerns inform the assessment of whether 4-year-old Bell has been exposed to child sexual abuse. In the “Analysis and Decision,” it is stated:

Bell has clearly stated both at home and in school that she does not want to visit her (father) because he hits her. Furthermore, Bell said her father had touched her bottom and genitals. (Father) denied the allegations and the police investigation has been closed. […] it is worrying that Bell has repeatedly indicated that her father has subjected her to violence/abuse and her utterances should be taken seriously. Investigation by the Social Services has clearly shown that Bell’s needs concerning sleep, routines, food, medical care and, stimulation, are being met […] Engaged parents is a protective factor, although there is a concern as to whether Bell’s needs of emotionally available adults have been adequately met.

Bell’s accounts could be interpreted as a disclosure of a sexual offense and violations of bodily integrity. However, the Social Services depart from a moral economy of care and the psychologization of the issue. This is vivid in the second part of the passage, where child sexual abuse issues shift to the assessment of biological, care-related, and emotional needs. This detachment process from a structural embodied vulnerability (sexual abuse) continues throughout the assessment. For instance, below “Health,” Bell’s resistance to medical treatment is discussed:

Last year, Bell had health issues […]. Bell was forcibly medicated and detained in connection with these illnesses, which could explain Bell’s experience of being subjected to violence. While it is not possible to decide what lies behind Bell’s statements about violence and sexual abuse, the present focus should be to make Bell feel safe and supported.

The passage above is written in the light of health practitioners’ stated difficulties in examining the girl’s ears as well as the father’s statements about giving medication with force. The passage is indicative of a moral economy of care in which the child’s body figures in distinct ways. Bell is responded to primarily as the “forcibly medicated” and “detained” body with “health problems” (ears) rather than a body that might have been subjected to violence and sexual abuse (“touched […] bottom and genitals”). There are no words to explain why forced medication is not an issue nor why Bell does not resist receiving medication by her mother. The “will to health” (Rose, 2001, p. 6) of a parent, and here of professionals, is also in this case ruling out suspicions that the parent (or practitioners) violates the child’s bodily integrity. At the same time, the only judicio-moral element in this case is a mentioning of the closed police investigation.

While the description of Ada is one of a complying child who seeks validation by health professionals, the medicalization of Bell produces other effects. Her disobedience as a patient and a child, that is, agency and bodily resistance to medicalization (Knezevic, 2017; Sweis, 2017), transgresses the passive, compliant femininity of the psychosomatic sufferer (e.g., Burman, 2017; Ringrose & Renold, 2010; Sweis, 2017). This eliminates the idea that sexual or medical abuse has taken place. Simultaneously, there are no considerations about Bell’s resistance to care being a sign of exposure to sexual abuse.

Thus, the young Bell’s concerns do not get validation when care and health predominate the assessment. Illness becomes an obstacle, not a ground for a protective response. She is responded to as a medicalized body but is not seen as psychosomatically embodying that which she expresses. This case foregrounds certain embodied vulnerabilities, that is, innate biological and physiological, while downplaying others, that is, structural vulnerability to sexual violence (Meyer, 2007). As a result, the situation of the child remains unchanged.

The Unmarked Body

The assessment of Memory—a seemingly unmarked body—opens after her reporting to school that she is threatened and physically abused by her father. Unlike Ada and Bell, Memory’s voice gets more space in the assessment. Below “the child’s/the young person’s view,” it is for instance stated:

Memory says that her father sometimes threatens by saying “the dog will jump on her.” Memory says the father is kidding but Memory does not find it funny. She has not been able to talk to her father about it, though, because he then gets grouchy or angry. Memory says her father has called her “whore” and told her to “go to hell.” […] Memory tells us that the father also had beaten up her brother, which she estimates to have happened 1–3 times. Memory says nothing more about the incidents but demonstrates by closing her hand slightly to explain how the father beats her brother.

While the passage above illustrates the gendered verbal abuse by the father, threats, and exposure of the child to violence, in the final assessment, however, violence equals physical abuse only:

Social Services get divergent views of the violence because the father denies it has happened. Memory’s mother has no previous experiences of physical violations from the father. Therefore, it is difficult to assess what is true.

The girl and her mother are heard for the physical violence and somatic suffering that they have not experienced (not the psychological and verbal abuse that they have witnessed and are being exposed to), and the father’s explanation of the violence is given the same weight as the girl’s (“difficult to assess what is true”). Similar to the previous case scenario, the focus is on the care that is not provided instead of the reported acts of violations. The emphasis on the (lack of) physical violence and the disregarding of other forms suggests intervention responding to visibly marked corporeal harm and “biological evidence” (Knezevic, Forthcoming; Ticktin, 2011b, p. 140)—in this case, shifting the focus to the father’s psychiatric diagnosis. Being labeled as “psychological/emotional neglect,” “suspected/signs of problems with the youngster,” and explained by referring to psychiatric diagnosis, the case approaches violence as a situational and curable problem, not systemic, gender- and power related. As a result, the girl’s expressions of fear and her accounts about violence are discredited. The case does not evoke a response to the violations as no welfare service is suggested that explicitly deals with (exposure to) violence. Instead, the Social Services recommend counseling for children whose parents have separated.

The three cases discussed so far, all focusing on girls, partly support research about the gendered (and ageist) construction of vulnerability rendering boys less vulnerable (Eriksson, 2009). Yet, vulnerability, as shown, is primarily assessed through signs of psychosomatic harm. Hence, protection is limited even for girls like Memory and Bell when the access to services that provide validation of psychosomatic harm is uneven (Williams & Graham, 2016). Furthermore, the gendering of vulnerability suggests that, in the context of a moral economy of care, the seemingly unmarked body is complexly marked nonetheless in terms of both gender and class.

The Self-Harming Body

The case of 10-year-old Maya opens after the school’s referral focusing on Maya’s self-harming and sexual behavior. This is mentioned in the section “Emotional and behavioral development”:

Maya has, mainly in school, demonstrated a self-harming behavior. She gives the impression of not feeling well by physically damaging herself and declaring that she no longer wants to live. Maya also engages in risky behavior in the form of seeking contact with unknown people on the Internet as well as using a sexually transgressive language.

Maya herself, however, addresses other issues.

Also, Maya has said in school that her stepfather […] has been very drunk and acted strangely on several occasions. Maya has also said that she usually sleeps at her uncle’s place when this happens. Maya has also told that she is afraid of water because her father has held her head underwater and that she has been afraid of her brother because he has held a knife against her neck.

All the incidents about the home mentioned by Maya, except for the substance misuse, are absent in the final assessment, that is, “Analysis and Decision.” So is Maya’s fear, which is never investigated. The final comment below the subheading indicates that the self-harming body, heard as “a cry for help,” is a bodily vulnerability that evokes responses:

Maya’s behavior should be taken very seriously and be considered a cry for help. If not adequately addressed, there is a risk that Maya’s behavior will escalate.

Puggioni (2014) understands “acts of self-harm” as acts of political bodily resistance in situations of control where verbal protests are disallowed or futile. Yet, the Social Services’ approach to self-harm in somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, the investigators view self-harm as a cry for help and a reaction to a problem. On the other hand, self-harm is in itself a risk that might “escalate.” What in the text is described as “precocious” self-presentation, sexual risk behavior and “sexually transgressive language,” suggests that Maya’s behavior is the problem (Burman, 2017). The preoccupation with the feminized naked body and “sexual danger” (Meyer, 2007; Wells, 2011, p. 17) only works so far as to encompass the child’s behavior and external “unknown” potential perpetrators, not the home environment.

Paradoxically enough, even though Maya is responded to as psychosomatically suffering and crying for help, she remains unprotected. The case closes by providing no other welfare service besides follow-up after 3 months and temporary contact with the school nurse. This is because the parents and to some extent Maya herself refuse any help from the Social Services.

It is unknown why Maya does not want to have contact with the Social Services but neither is it disclosed what kinds of support Maya would like to get or if she has ever been asked. It is, however, possible to state that Maya’s parents have far more power over the un/provided welfare services, while they are never held accountable for the violations she mentions. A child who might be violated against by her parent is simultaneously dependent on the parent’s willingness to access services. This could be one explanation for why Maya remains unprotected.

Another possibility is that Maya’s embodied vulnerability is heard as a “cry” for care but not for justice (Ticktin, 2011c, p. 260). Hence, neither the cutting nor the risk to bodily integrity evoke as strong responses when seen as self-inflicted and not caused by an external body or outsider. Furthermore, the girl does not live up to the ageist, classed, gendered, and sexualized cultural construction of an “innocent” victim due to her age and “sexual” or “precocious” adult-like behavior (Burman, 2017; Eriksson, 2009; Meyer, 2007). These transgressions of heteronormative middle-class femininity ideals (Ringrose & Renold, 2010) and the low moral status of the child (Knezevic, 2017) become obstacles for child welfare to respond to her as vulnerable. Finally, the violations she describes resemble what might otherwise have been interpreted as “honor-related violence,” where threats and violence are used by more than one family member (NBHW, 2013, p. 44) yet Maya—coded as white and Swedish—is not considered to be subjected to such gendered violations. According to Pringle, problems that cannot be imposed on the racialized, pathological “stranger” others are more difficult to deal with or recognize within Swedish child welfare (Pringle, 2010). This interpretation becomes plausible when compared to racially othered children, below.

The Neurobiological Body

The 8-year-old Kailash’s case opens with the school urging his parents to allow a child psychiatric examination. The description of Kailash entails words such as “dangerous,” “antisocial” and having an “externalizing behavior.” Below the heading “Analysis and Assessment,” it is stated:

The school sees the need to investigate Kailash at [child psychiatry], something that is also confirmed by [child psychiatry] after meeting Kailash.

The calls for a child psychiatric examination suggest a neurobiologization of Kailash (Rose & Abi-Rached, 2013). This focus remains in the assessment of “facts about the child’s/the young’s health,” which brings up Kailash’s brain as the only issue:

According to earlier assessments, parents say that when Kailash was 5 months old, he hit his head so badly that bleeding had to be solved with surgery. Kailash has been on several follow-ups and doctors cannot see any complications caused by the injury. Otherwise, Kailash is healthy.

According to Kailash himself, the school’s portrayal of him as a child with special needs, or as he expresses it, as “sick,” is precisely the problem:

Kailash is sad because his classmates see him as “sick.” Kailash feels it is unfair that the school has not apologized.

Thus, Kailash and his parents give an altogether different version of the situation “claiming that Kailash has been unfairly treated by the school and been labeled as ‘different’ by the school, [child psychiatry] and [Social Services].” Also mentioned are bullying by peers and a violent incident by the school personnel. Besides putting his story across by speaking of the school’s pathologization and treatment as unfair, Kailash draws on a moral economy of care when displaying his bodily injuries. Below “Observations by the Social Services,” it is stated:

When entering the room, the responsible investigator briefly tries to continue to tell about the assessment. Kailash then wants to start by showing the mark on his squeezed finger and begins to tell about the incident. There is a shielded impression to Kailash as he makes a jerking movement with his neck, entirely avoiding eye contact with those in the room. Kailash just keeps telling about the incident.

Without adding any value in the observation, it sounds more “harsh” when Kailash speaks [his mother tongue] than the rest [participants].

The violent incident in school that Kailash speaks about is overshadowed by the Social Services’ observation of the child’s body language, the harsh tone he speaks his mother tongue in, and his social skills (his inability to understand when to start and stop speaking). There is, as seen above, prioritization to assess the boy’s innate vulnerability and mental injury (brain) instead of the structural vulnerability to institutional violence (injured finger) in the aftermath of injury at school. The response resembles at once, in Clement’s words, “uncaring forms of justice and unjust forms of care” (Clement, 1996, p. 2). While care may lead to “a compassionate repression” (Fassin, 2005, p. 362), here it is more appropriate to describe the response to Kailash as care without compassion or pathologization that does not even mobilize pity (e.g., Dominelli, 2010; Fassin, 2005; Ticktin, 2011a; Tronto, 1993).

The racialized child welfare moral economy becomes visible as the treatment in school is never linked to the corporal ban and violence not being permitted in school. A paternalistic judicio-moral statement that violence is “not legal” becomes nevertheless a response to Kailash’s parents, unlike any other case presented above.

[Mother] says that [corporeal punishment] had existed before the move to Sweden while [father] claims that the parents never used violence against Kailash. Regardless, this information is serious and it should be stressed that corporal punishment is not legal in Sweden and affects a child’s development negatively.

Not being able to provide individualized services based on neurobiological innate vulnerability due to the boy’s unexamined body, the Social Services relate the problems to Kailash and his lacking social skills (“integration in the Swedish society”) and misfortunes (“misunderstandings and some bullying due to language barriers”). In this process, Kailash’s body becomes marked as racialized other. The provided welfare service, a “qualified support person,” is a response to misfortunes and problems of individuals, not injustices (e.g., Fassin, 2010/2012a). This suggests a depoliticization and construction of a problem of only a deviant few that are to blame for the very problem they are exposed to (Knezevic, 2017; Burman, 2017; Pringle, 2010; Ringrose & Renold, 2010).

When the parents manage to arrange a school replacement and the new school provides “no signals” that the child in question has issues, the case closes. The case indicates what it takes to protect children from institutional violence. As seen previously, this protection depends on the engagement, even resistance, of resourceful parents.

Weighty Issues: The Obese Body

Although 10-year-old Tarana has been subjected to racist slur at school, her minority “background” is only mentioned when assessing her home and family. Rights to education and reproductive rights (free choice of partner and when to marry) are discussed in this specific context. Also, an earlier assessment of her “identity” as linked to gender and ethnicity, and her “sexually externalizing behavior,” is not taken into consideration in the assessment of the current circumstances at school, outlined below “Observations by the Social Services”:

When visiting Tarana at home, Tarana tells us that on the same day some school students had pulled down her pants right down to her ankles.

[…] on her way to the meeting, [mother] found in the schoolyard how Tarana was squeezed in a corner and surrounded by a bunch of boys holding branches in their hands. Tarana’s jacket laid on the ground and Tarana froze because it was several degrees below zero outside.

When recognizing bullying as a problem, it remains depoliticized and the peers’ violations of Tarana’s bodily integrity are not associated with simultaneously gendered, sexualized, and racialized violations (Burman, 2017; Ringrose & Renold, 2010). Instead, a moral economy of care predominates the assessment of the school situation. A concluding remark in the “Analysis” states:

It has been found during the assessment that Tarana is a healthy girl with a lot of energy. Tarana is somewhat overweight and because of this is teased at school, and is remitted to [clinic for overweight]. According to mother, Tarana is keen on both candy and food and perhaps Tarana is comfort eating when, as [Tarana] herself says, she is disliked. Tarana is diagnosed with [psychiatric brain disorder].

The focus is on the health of the (neuro)biological body (“healthy girl,” “overweight,” psychiatric brain disorder). The idea of a bodily disorder is reinforced by the remittance to the obesity clinic gone unchallenged, and by how the nutrition practice is understood, that is, how being “keen on both candy and food” links to a prospective eating disorder (“comfort eating”). The obesity problematic, furthermore, is informed by middle-class, white, and gendered ideas about the healthy feminine body. As such, it pathologizes certain classed, racialized, and gendered lifestyles and bodies (Burman, 2017; Gard & Wright, 2005; Rauscher et al., 2013). The investigators adopt the perspective of the bullies who have violated her bodily integrity in the first place when, as implied in assessment, bullying her due to her weight. Emphasizing the abnormal obese body and psychiatric diagnosis, the Social Services overlook other reasons for the bullying and suggest Tarana’s weight is more of a problem than the teasing (Rauscher et al., 2013).

This suggests a biopolitical “neoliberal model of intervention” and neoliberal self-care and victim blaming (Burman, 2017, p. 100; Tronto, 2013); the girl and her weight is the problem, and modification of her body is the solution. Thus, what could be read as justice issues are in the end reduced to issues of care and deviant biological bodies (Burman, 2017; Fassin, 2010/2012a).

A school replacement never becomes an option for Tarana even though she states this to be her wish. The case ends with the provision of a support person and a support family. These welfare services do not give any importance to the girl’s bodily integrity. Yet, as seen earlier, the racialized response to the child’s upbringing at home takes an explicitly gendered form (cf. Gruber, 2007). Hence, issues linked to social justice and violation of bodily integrity are not unimaginable. Only they seem restricted to the realm of home of the racialized family, not school.

Conclusion

This study contributes to the field by integrating theories of moral economy, embodiment, and intersectionality into social work and in relation to children. By illustrating the prevailing moral economy of child welfare, I offer a framework for analysis of child welfare moral responses to children’s embodied vulnerabilities. An intersectional lens offers a nuanced understanding of these responses as they manifest in the context of diverse childhoods.

The analyzed cases could all be read as forms of structural vulnerabilities due to the embodied categories of gender, race, and age, to name but a few. However, the moral economy of care depoliticizes social problems and makes psychological, neurobiological, or biomedical approaches to the body prevalent.

One could state that violations do not bear weight until the child embodies the problems psychosomatically (Fassin, 2010/2012a), suggesting the wrongful only being significant when psychosomatically harmful. A child displaying psychosomatic suffering is simultaneously embedded in a cultural construction of vulnerability that associates with a young, passive, and desexualized femininity. As shown, a consequence of this is that a child may be left without support even when displaying psychosomatic signs of suffering. In addition, children whose embodied selves are exposed to gender-based violence, sexual harassment and abuse, and institutional racism, yet whose accounts of injustices do not always display the vivid shapes of “biological evidence” (Knezevic, Forthcoming; Ticktin, 2011b, p. 140), are not taken as seriously. As already noted, assessing deserving vulnerabilities in the ways mentioned may lead to “the production of diseased citizens” (Ticktin, 2011a, p. 192).

The relative absence of a vocabulary of rights, social justice, and equality in the assessments does not fully apply to the racialized othered children. Their vulnerability is filtered through cultures and minority backgrounds in ways that seem unjust when compared to how white Swedish families are addressed. In the racialized moral economy of child welfare, the talk about violence, justice, and rights serves to enhance rather than deal with institutional racism and sexual harassment. The presence and the character of judicio-moral responses to gendered and ageist violations in cases involving racial and ethnic minority children, but their absence in other cases, is also a matter of neglecting possible gendered and sexual violations at home of children coded as Swedish.

Showing some patterns and material implications of psychobiologism in assessments, the study contributes to social work research and education on child assessment frameworks like BBIC and welfare services’ limitations in dealing with violations in childhoods. I show that structural approaches to vulnerability are downplayed in assessments, and the provision of child services, if any, resembles a welfare service “kit” consisting of alternatives that do not recognize power relations (Ticktin, 2011c, p. 251). While the services may vary between countries as well as municipalities, it is alarming that none of the examples addressed protect the child from violations.

Instead, protection interlinks with a neoliberal logic (Dominelli, 2002; Ong, 2006; Tronto, 2013) and children depending on the ability and willingness of their parents to get in touch with health-care professionals, realize school replacements, and in other ways be a step ahead of the Social Services by providing the very services that Social Services typically recommend. Given the gendered construction of parenting and the need for a certain cultural and social capital to know whom to turn to and what to ask for, parents’ protection of children from ageist, gendered, and racialized violations is likewise a practice with age-related, gendered, racialized, and classed aspects. The cases, thus, suggest uneven access to welfare services (Dominelli, 2010; Williams & Graham, 2016), and in turn, uneven recognition and management of vulnerability (e.g., Sevenhuijsen, 1998; Tronto, 1993, 2013).

The limitations discussed above call for a rethinking of the role of child welfare and its symptom-oriented treatments of individuals as problems (Burman, 2017; Tronto, 2013). Such calls are by no means novel but have been widely discussed by feminist ethic of care theorists showing that alternative approaches to care are needed and possible (e.g., Clement, 1996; Sevenhuijsen, 1998; Tronto, 1993, 2013). However, in this study, I argue that a moral economy of social justice (Knezevic, Forthcoming) is a prerequisite for going beyond the illustrated psychobiologism, suffering, illness, and individualization as moral gatekeepers to recognition and rights to support. Furthermore, a critical and intersectional interrogation with the moralities mobilized in child welfare suggests that a moral economy of social justice is crucial if embodied vulnerabilities are to be acknowledged without generating differentiated moral responses to children in the process. Rather than simply encompassing legislative bodies and abstract right claims (Burman, 2017; Clement, 1996; Fassin, 2010/2012a; Sevenhuijsen, 1998; Ticktin, 2011a; Wells, 2011), a moral economy of social justice would denote structural approaches and solutions to complex and intersecting vulnerabilities and relations of power, including those in childhoods and those of child welfare.

Footnotes

Author’s Note

The study is approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board (dnr. 2014-350).

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to the editors and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on an earlier draft of this article. An earlier version of this study was presented at the Department of Social Work, Malmö University, and TISSA Conference (Ljubljana, August 2018) and I am thankful for the participants’ feedback. I also thank Mekonnen Tesfahuney and Maria Eriksson for their fruitful and critical engagement with a draft, as well as Markus Herz, Mia Heikkilä, and Els-Marie Anbäcken for their reading.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Grant No. 2013-1113).

ORCID iD

Zlatana Knezevic

Notes

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