IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v19y2014i3p237-245.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Representing Attitudes to Welfare Dependency: Relational Geographies of Welfare

Author

Listed:
  • Jessica Pykett

Abstract

This article outlines the recent circulation of media images and discourse relating to characters pre-figured as ‘welfare dependents’ and reaction to Benefits Street. The article provides a brief overview of sociological analyses of such representations of apparently spiralling ‘cultures of dependency’ and proposes an alternative relational geography approach to understanding existing welfare dynamics. It describes a shift from putative welfare dependency, to dependency on geographically uneven employment opportunities, low-wage dependency and dependency on a new migrant division of labour. It then contrasts this relational geography approach with the increasingly behaviourist overtones of contemporary welfare reform, which began under New Labour and have accelerated under the Coalition government since 2010. Such policies are in part reliant on the aforementioned media images in securing public acceptance. The article concludes by speculating on the apparent importance of Benefits Street in marking the possible ‘end times’ for the welfare state as we knew it.

Suggested Citation

  • Jessica Pykett, 2014. "Representing Attitudes to Welfare Dependency: Relational Geographies of Welfare," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 19(3), pages 237-245, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:19:y:2014:i:3:p:237-245
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.3453
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.3453
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5153/sro.3453?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Bagguley & Kirk Mann, 1992. "Idle Thieving Bastards? Scholarly Representations of the `Underclass'," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 6(1), pages 113-126, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Julie MacLeavy & David Manley, 2018. "(Re)discovering the lost middle: intergenerational inheritances and economic inequality in urban and regional research," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(10), pages 1435-1446, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anahely Medrano, 2013. "Elites and Poverty in the Neoliberal Era: The Case of Mexico," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 5(2), pages 203-223, June.
    2. Andrew Leyshon & Paola Signoretta & David Knights & Catrina Alferoff & Dawn Burton, 2006. "Walking with Moneylenders: The Ecology of the UK Home-collected Credit Industry," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(1), pages 161-186, January.
    3. Louise Wattis, 2013. "Class, Students and Place: Encountering Locality in a Post-industrial Landscape," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(12), pages 2425-2440, September.
    4. Bill Jordan & Marcus Redley, 1994. "Polarisation, Underclass and the Welfare State," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 8(2), pages 153-176, June.
    5. Peter Lee, 1994. "Housing and Spatial Deprivation: Relocating the Underclass and the New Urban Poor," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 31(7), pages 1191-1209, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:19:y:2014:i:3:p:237-245. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.