Alternative conceptions of agency: getting by, getting out, getting back

The conception of agency envisaged by the New Right has tended to emphasize self-interest, particularly on the part of benefit claimants (Wright 2012). However, restricting analysis to a conception of ‘bad agency’ that must be corrected in order to promote acceptable behaviours overlooks the subtlety and complexity that all human agents exhibit in their interactions (Wright 2012). Human beings are motivated by a range of different factors, including but not restricted to, self-interest (Hogget 2001; Wright 2012). Individuals are

not unitary beings, but may express different forms of agency at different times. Importantly this introduces the possibility of multiple selves (Hoggett 2001). Drawing an example from the above discussion, self-surveillance could be experienced and consented to by one self, while being simultaneously resisted by another. Viewed in this way, the conception of agency on which conditionality policy is based appears somewhat two-dimensional (Hoggett 2001).

Lister (2004) has sought to capture the complexity of human agency in a taxonomy of agencies expressed by people experiencing poverty (Figure 3.1). The different dimensions represent continua and can be expressed by the same individual in different ways and at different times.

Figure 3.1: Lister’s taxonomy of agency

Everyday Agency

Getting By Getting (back) at

Personal

Agency Political/Citizenship Agency

Getting out Getting Organized

Strategic Agency

Perhaps the most extensively researched form of agency in Lister’s schema is that relating to ‘getting by’. Kempson et al. (1994), Daly and Leonard (2002), Hosain et al. (2011), and Daly and Kelly (2015) variously point to the coping strategies adopted by people experiencing poverty, including shopping differently, budgeting carefully, and reducing spending on social interactions. These studies all highlight the amount of work that goes into the day-to-day process of ‘managing’ on a low income, and stand as useful counters to narratives portraying people in poverty as lazy and feckless. Similarly, Flint (2008) discusses the ways in which these narratives had been internalized by people experiencing poverty through regular self-critique at feeling that they were not working hard enough to make ends meet. He also describes the operation of guilt as a form of self-surveillance, which caused participants in that study to feel that they must constantly keep busy.

Discussions of budgetary strategies have revealed an interesting distinction made by individuals and households between income from employment, and that from benefits (Kempson et al. 1994). This distinction echoes Zelizer’s (1989) concept of ‘special monies’. Unlike ‘market monies’, ‘special monies’ relate to the different social meanings accounted to particular forms of income and expenditure, for example, ‘wife’s monies’. This gendered differential is also evident in Kempson et al.’s (1994) findings, where men paid bills, while women covered ‘housekeeping’. That individuals differentiate benefits from other forms of income and use them in particular ways to reflect this stands in contrast to the view of benefits as being claimed purely for the purpose of work avoidance and income maximization.

Other expressions of agency discussed by Lister (2004) include efforts to ‘get (back) at’ the system. In this she discusses forms of everyday resistance to poverty and its causes. She cites benefit fraud as a possible example of this. Though she insists that this is not as widespread as some accounts would lead one to believe, the active decision to defraud can be seen as an expression of agency aimed at challenging an unfair system. Similarly, rejecting ‘othering’ or stigmatizing narratives can act as a form of discursive resistance (see section 3.5.1 for a discussion of this). This is illustrated by

Pemberton et al. (2016, p. 22) who found significant awareness of structural barriers to employment among their participants who actively contested stigmatizing narratives. However, the pervasiveness of these discourses was also highlighted by what they termed ‘contradictory consciousness’ (p. 22) where participants simultaneously rejected negative portrayals applied to themselves, while stigmatizing others. Participating in the informal economy or even petty crime are further examples of ‘getting (back) at’. Many of these are strategies also aimed at ‘getting out’ of poverty. Kempson et al. (1994, p. 275) identified a hierarchy of approaches to managing poverty, ranging from ‘finding (better paid) full-time work’ to petty crime. Interestingly, begging was something that was viewed as beyond the realms of acceptability.

These accounts all credit individuals experiencing poverty with considerable agency, and stand as an important counter to ideas of passivity. However, in recognizing that individuals are able to exercise considerable agency, there is a danger in focusing too heavily on individual coping mechanisms while ignoring the many structural impediments that still exist to exiting poverty (Dagdeviren et al. 2016). The concept of ‘resilience’ is a useful case in point (ibid). Resilience has become a widely used term when discussing poverty and social exclusion and the ways in which people ‘manage’, particularly through short-term reductions in income, e.g. through redundancy

(Dagdevireien et al. 2016). However, these approaches seldom consider issues, like power and privilege, which can serve to make some individuals more resilient than others. Those on higher incomes, for example, may be more likely to have savings or capital that enable them to absorb short-term shocks such as redundancy. This would make them appear more ‘resilient’ than someone in insecure, low-wage employment with no savings. However, this ignores the influence of structural factors such as the adoption of an economic model that has led to a growth in insecure labour (Dagdevireien et al. 2016). Focusing on the agency involved in resilience, to the exclusion of structural forces, therefore only reveals part of the picture (Dagdevireien et al. 2016). In discussing the other forms of agency in her taxonomy, Lister (2004) is careful to note the limitations to their exercise. This is particularly so with

‘getting organized’, where efforts to coalesce around a stigmatized identity such as ‘poor’ or ‘on benefits’ can act as a deterrent to involvement.

This section has discussed the intensification of conditionality and sanctions applied to disabled people over the period from May 2010 to May 2015. It has also explored different conceptions of agency applied to people who use benefits. While conditionality policy adopts mechanisms of surveillance and self-surveillance to adopt assumed ‘bad agency’, this section has highlighted that human agency can be exhibited in a plurality of different responses that can be exercised by individuals at different times and in different

circumstances.

3.4 Promoting the language of citizenship through welfare