Judge, Nudge, or Engage? Gender-related pressures and responses among street-level service providers working with migrants

This paper examines ideology and identity conflicts related to gender, as experienced by individuals working at the street-level with migrants in the cities of Athens and Berlin. It seeks to answer what the tensions and pressures they experience are, based on their perceived differences from migrants, and how they respond to them conceptually and practically. This work employs theoretical perspectives from social psychology, and aims to contribute to the public administration literature of ‘street-level bureaucracy’ and the ‘citizen-agent narrative’ in particular. The data used are based on 60 in-depth semi-structured interviews with street-level service providers who have daily contact with migrants, especially social workers, administrative employees, volunteers and activists. The interviews were conducted in the capital cities of Athens and Berlin, between December 2015 and December 2017. The key findings suggest that a) differences in gender identities and ideologies are indeed a significant source of tensions among service providers working with migrants, b) the service providers develop different conceptual strategies to make sense of these tensions, based on either essentialism or social constructionism, as well as on how hierarchical they perceive their relationship to be; and c) they develop three practical strategies to react to such tensions: they ‘judge’ and maintain a distance from migrants, they ‘nudge’ and try to change migrants’ behaviour, or they ‘engage’ with them further, through patience and dialogue.