Ethnographies of Deservingness: Unpacking Ideologies of Distribution and Inequality

Published by Berghahn Books 2022

Ethnographies of Deservingness

Unpacking Ideologies of Distribution and Inequality

Edited by: Jelena Tošić and Andreas Streinzer

Volume 45 in the series EASA Series

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781800736009

Overview
Contents

About this book

Claims around 'who deserves what and why' moralise inequality in the current global context of unprecedented wealth and its ever more selective distribution. Ethnographies of Deservingness explores this seeming paradox and the role of moralized assessments of distribution by reconnecting disparate discussions in the anthropology of migration, economic anthropology and political anthropology. This edited collection provides a novel and systematic conceptualization of Deservingness and shows how it can serve as a prime and integrative conceptual prism to ethnographically explore transforming welfare states, regimes of migration, as well as capitalist social reproduction and relations at large.

Author / Editor information

Jelena Tošić is Assistant Professor of Transcultural Studies at the University of St. Gallen and lecturer at the University of Vienna. Her current writings focus on borderlands in Southeast Europe, forced migration, citizenship and moralisations of inequality.

Andreas Streinzer is researcher in the ‘Europe’s Un/Deserving: Moralizations of Inequality in Comparative Perspective’ project at the University of St. Gallen and researcher at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main. He is co- convenor of the EASA Anthropology of Economy Network and the Regional Group Europe at the German Anthropological Association (DGSKA).

Jelena Tošić is Assistant Professor of Transcultural Studies at the University of St. Gallen and lecturer at the University of Vienna. Her current writings focus on borderlands in Southeast Europe, forced migration, citizenship and moralisations of inequality.

Reviews

“This is an excellent collection that has a coherence that is rare in edited volumes. It makes a major contribution to social scientific understandings of inequality through its focus on categorisations of ‘deservingness’. In what I think is a brilliant move, it combines conceptual and historical analysis with a focus on three themes that are rarely brought together in a single volume, namely: social welfare, migration and personal/household debt.” • Paul Stubbs, Former Co-President of the Association for the Anthropology of Policy of the American Anthropological Association

“The book addresses the concept of deservingness from different points of view. The four main parts of the book are rich in ethnography, have a strong theoretical background and offer to the reader a panoramic view that takes into consideration the (un)deservingness as a processual and relational notion rather than a condition.” • Georgeta Stoica, Université de La Réunion

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Introduction Deservingness Reassessing the Moral Dimensions of Inequality Andreas Streinzer and Jelena Tošic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I Deservingness: Genealogies, Struggles and Ideologies
1 Caring for the Old and Letting Them Die A Political Economy of Human Worth Susana Narotzky Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
2 Must the Tired and Poor ‘Stand on Their Own Two Feet’? Tools for Analysing How Migrants’ Deservingness Is Reckoned Sarah S Willen and Jennifer Cook Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	68
3 ‘Deserving Classes without Class’ Explaining the Neonationalist Ascendancy Don Kalb Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
4 Comparing Deservingness A Reflexive Approach to Solidarity and Cruelty Erik Bähre Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
Part II Categories, Policies and Negotiations of Deservingness
5 Hartz IV Affective and Sensual Registers of Moral Inferiority Stefan Wellgraf Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
6 Unemployment, Deservingness and Ideological Apparatuses A Case Study from Turin, Italy Carlo Capello Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
7 The Politics of Austerity Welfare Charity, Discourses of Deservingness and Human Needs in a Portuguese Church Parish Patrícia Alves de Matos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
8 ‘Here, Morality Is a Sense of Entitlement’ Citizenship, Deservingness and Inequality in Suburban Atlanta Elisa Lanari Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	222
Part III The (Un)Deserving Migrant/Refugee
9 Ambivalences of (Un)Deservingness Tracing Vulnerability in the EU Border Regime Sabine Strasser Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
10 The Politics of Deservingness among Resettled Bhutanese Refugees Nicole Hoellerer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	278
11 Suffering and Vulnerability Reconfi gured Refugee Images of Hungarian Migrants Working in German Refugee Accommodation Institutions Ildikó Zakariás and Margit Feischmidt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	304
Part IV Debt Relations: The State, Market Actors and Debtors
12 Do Mortgagors in Hardship Deserve Debt Relief? Legitimizing and Challenging Inequality during the Spanish Home Repossession Crisis Irene Sabaté Muriel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331
13 Households on Trial Over-indebtedness, the State and Moral Struggles in Greece Theodora Vetta Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	359
14 Victims, Patriots and the Middle Class The (Un)Deservingness of Debtors in Post-Credit Boom Croatia Marek Mikuš Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	385
Afterword Differentiating Deservingness James G. Carrier Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	413
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	429

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 436
Keywords: Political and Economic Anthropology; Refugee and Migration Studies; Sociology

eBook

Published: August 12, 2022
ISBN: 9781800736009