Entangled in the stigma machine: An exploration of the dynamics of stigma and resistance in the lives of women engaged with the UK social security system



Evans, Nancy ORCID: 0000-0001-7763-2434
(2022) Entangled in the stigma machine: An exploration of the dynamics of stigma and resistance in the lives of women engaged with the UK social security system. PhD thesis, University of Liverpool.

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Abstract

The recent retheorisation of stigma (Tyler, 2020) has transformed understandings of the concept from its individualistic, apolitical usage in twentieth century Sociology, instead enabling an overtly political understanding of stigma as a form of power deliberately crafted to legitimise and amplify unequal social relations. This can be applied to the longstanding stigma attached to social security receipt in Britain, which has renewed significance in the contemporary era of neoliberal austerity. The unprecedented welfare reforms since the 2007/8 financial crisis have worked in conjunction with stigmatising policy narratives and media depictions functioning to legitimise and garner consent for such punitive policy shifts. These reforms have disproportionately gendered effects and significantly impact on disabled people. Nonetheless, there is a shortage of research empirically examining the experiences of female welfare recipients in this context, and the intersection of class, gender and disability, hence this is an under-theorised yet pertinent area of enquiry. This thesis therefore explores the dynamics of stigma and resistance in the lives of sixteen women in Merseyside currently or intermittently claiming a range of means-tested and non-means-tested benefits. Drawing on data from in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and informed by an intersectional feminist approach, the study illuminates how stigma operates and impacts on these women’s everyday lives. Owing to the group comprising of women with a variation of circumstances and benefit claiming categories, with some claiming due to disability and mental health issues, some mothers and some in paid employment, the study enables a rich, holistic understanding of the mechanisms and impacts of stigma. The thesis findings demonstrate the ubiquity of stigma as a pervasive form of power driving, legitimating and amplifying inequalities based on gender, class and disability (Tyler, 2020). Institutionally-embedded stigma is shown to permeate every aspect of the system, from its design and accessibility, to the implementation of welfare policies and the forms of conditionality and punitiveness imposed. The system is demonstrated to be not only based on and legitimised by stigma, but to deliberately inflict stigma onto vulnerable groups, adding weight to conceptions of austerity as violent. Furthermore, the findings illustrate how state-orchestrated stigma bleeds into everyday interactions and self-perceptions, and how benefits stigma intersects with gender, class and disability. Another key contribution is the insights offered about resistance strategies and stigma responses; rather than signifying a complete disavowal of stigma, responses are contradictory and complex, thus demonstrating the power and insidiousness of state-produced stigma.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Divisions: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Law and Social Justice
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 08 Jun 2022 09:03
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 21:01
DOI: 10.17638/03155133
Supervisors:
  • Hancock, Lynn
  • Hardwick, ANNE
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3155133