Support or Exploitation? Workfare Implementation and Migrants' Resistance within the Swiss Reception System
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2374880 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Agnès Aubry (0000-0003-4196-7472, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland (HES-SO Valais-Wallis), Switzerland, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1394-1414 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Work Employment and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0950-0170 • E-ISSN: 1469-8722 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/09500170251344717 |
| OpenAlex | W4411291430 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 42 |
Drawing on ethnographic research, this article explores the daily implementation and lived experiences of workfare-inspired programmes designed for migrants seeking protection, who are living in Swiss reception centres. It examines how they are compelled to perform a wide range of unpaid work in exchange for their support and how they negotiate that work. Using a situated intersectional approach, the article shows how workfare-inspired programmes become a tool for channelling the behaviours of racialised migrant men and underlines the everyday resistance practices and survival strategies migrant claimants use to face exploitation. This case study takes a critical stance towards mainstream accounts of migrant workfare that frame it as a pathway to integration and empowerment. It brings new empirical insights to critical welfare studies and contributes to research on contemporary social security reform by showing how migrant claimants routinely resist the implementation of workfare
Biology · Political science · Resistance (ecology · Workfare · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Refugees, and Integration
Casualties of Care
Commentary. 'Work first'
Immigrant Volunteering
Case Study Research
Introduction
The contested politics of mobility
The Price of Rights
Domination and the Arts of Resistance
Formations of Class and Gender
Contesting policy categories using intersectionality
Asylum Seekers, Power Relations, and Everyday Resistance Practices
Claiming control
Intersectionality, migration and development
Managing Asylum
Situated Intersectionality and Social Inequality
Ambiguous Encounters
Is My Volunteer Job Not Real Work?’ The Experiences of Migrant Women with Finding Employment Through Volunteer Work
Crafting the Neoliberal State
Asylum, welfare and work
The use of the abuse policy narrative in asylum debates and its effects on citizens’ opinion formation
Becoming Less Illegal
Combining hegemonic masculinity and intersectionality
Déni de travail
Women, Citizenship and Difference
Free Labor
Le demandeur d'asile bénévole, nouvelle figure du « migrant méritant
Consenting to the Consent Form
Fiddly Jobs, Undeclared Working and the Something for Nothing Society
Chatting Shit' in the Jobcentre
Speaking up, leaving or keeping silent
Welfare reform, precarity and the re-commodification of labour
Employment status and subjective well-being
Extending Conceptual Boundaries
Willing to Work
"The "migrant with poor prospects
Working on Welfare
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |