Single mothers and resistance to welfare-to-work: A Bourdieusian account

Abstract

This research applied Bourdieusian field theory to explain the forms of resistance exercised by single mothers exposed to the cultural and economic domination of Australian welfare-to-work policy. The mothers were affected by policy changes that reduced their social security benefit income and brought them into the field of activation policies. Unlike other studies focusing on well-being effects, this study focused on understanding resistance, that is, how welfare subjects like single mothers exercise resistance in dominating contexts. Bourdieusian field theory was applied to explain these resistances as a reaction to a social policy reclassification and to identity the enabling resources for it. This article observes the conditions that enabled single mothers to convert individual forms of resistance into collective action. In this respect, Husu’s adaptation of Bourdieusian field theory to social movement studies provided insight into how dominating fields like those of activation policy, generate resistances and social movements.