Cultural Dimensions of Workfare and Welfare.

I compare the treatment of two marginal recipient groups, not commonly regarded as “on welfare,” to that experienced by conventional welfare recipients and argue that we need an understanding of welfare that takes culture more seriously. Public discourse concerning welfare would be more enlightening if we could move beyond hegemonic concepts such as “economic self-sufficiency.” I propose thinking of welfare as a public subsidy for groups whose way of life is incompatible with economic self-sufficiency – an approach that enables us to consider culture explicitly in debates regarding the core populations affected by social policy.