Realizing Rights in the Shadow of the Welfare State: An Urban Ethnography of Outreach Social Work with Precaritized Migrants Experiencing Homelessness

Abstract

Summary

This urban ethnography examines state-led social work's role in engaging precaritized migrants experiencing homelessness within Northern and Western European welfare states. These migrants navigate constrained access to social rights while contending with intersecting forms of class- and race-based discrimination. Integrating the concepts of precarity and social work as a human rights-based profession, the study focuses on outreach social workers in Ghent, Belgium, through participant observations and qualitative interviews with 14 practitioners.

Findings

The findings reveal complex layers of precarity shaped by global, state, and market dynamics, identifying four strategies employed by outreach social workers: adopting a spatial and lifeworld-oriented approach, fostering an inclusive interpretation of citizenship, facilitating access to humanitarian and charity-oriented support, and addressing precarious legal statuses. Despite their efforts, outreach social workers operate within a welfare system that fails to recognize the rights of those they support, leaving them vulnerable to the challenges posed by prevalent anti-migrant and anti-homelessness sentiments, which threaten their human rights orientation.

Applications

These findings underscore the need to expand outreach social worker theorization beyond its current welfare state framework, presenting a critical decision point: either continue within a harm reduction logic or prioritize advocacy for more inclusive legal frameworks within government policy. Staying true to their human rights approach, such a shift is essential to resisting the existing hierarchical perception of human worth and the criminalization of homelessness. Moreover, taking this stance would ultimately support individual social workers by reducing their vulnerability to the negative perceptions of precarious migrants experiencing homelessness present in broader society.