Performing conditionality: a theoretical framework on the creation of welfare subjectivities through data and data-driven technologies

• In Event: Digital Criminology: Alternative Futures

Abstract

The welfare state functions as a system of social regulation shaping economic life (Garland, 2016). Since the 1990s, welfare policies have undergone a fundamental shift, moving from universal entitlement based on citizenship to welfare conditionality, where access to benefits is contingent on fulfilling behavioural and psychological requirements - primarily demonstrating employability within an active labour market (Dwyer, 2010; Dean, 2014; Adler & Terum, 2017). Alongside this transformation, the rise of datafication and digitalization has reshaped the ways in which welfare services operate, introducing new mechanisms of control and surveillance (Alston, 2018). This presentation, drawing on findings from the first phase of the JUSST (Justice in Surveillance Systems) project, presents a theoretical framework to examine the relationship between welfare subjectivities and digital governance by comparing people who receive unemployment benefits with offenders under electronic monitoring in the Netherlands and Norway. Based on expert interviews, focus group discussions, media analysis and document analysis, we explore the ways in which welfare recipients are increasingly categorized not only based on their willingness to work but also through risk profiles that predict potential fraud, shifting the focus from economic dependency to deviance. We furthermore highlight discourses about justice, redistribution and morality that are used to make sense of and justify the ways in which data and data-driven technologies are used within welfare services. In addition, we propose ways to construct counter-hegemonic narratives about the good use of data and data-driven technologies in welfare systems, that centralize the needs and experiences of marginalized populations through collaborative action research. This approach seeks to reclaim the use of data and technology for more just and equitable welfare governance.

Author

• Marijke Roosen, OsloMet