Between Care and Criminality: Marriage, Citizenship, and Family in Australian Social Welfare

Between Care and Criminality explores how social welfare encounters migration and marriage in Melbourne, Australia, in a period of intensified border control. It reveals how the domain of social welfare becomes the new frontier where the settler colonial state judges good citizenship, and how migrant conceptions of familial care, personhood, and mutual obligation become structured by the violence of displacement, borders, and conditional citizenship.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 02 January 2024
Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Between Care and Criminality delves into the intricate interplay between social welfare and migration, particularly in the context of heightened border control in Melbourne, Australia. It provides a comprehensive ethnographic exploration of the efforts undertaken to prevent forced marriages in the aftermath of a 2013 law that criminalized the practice. This law was disproportionately targeted at Muslim migrant communities, with the aim of gaining policy knowledge about family relations and marital practices within these communities. Through a detailed examination of the daily practices of direct service providers, police, and advocates, the book uncovers how the realm of social welfare becomes a new front line in the battle for good citizenship. It sheds light on how the settler colonial state shapes migrant conceptions of familial care, personhood, and mutual obligation through the violence of displacement, borders, and conditional citizenship. By challenging social welfare to reflect on these dynamics, the book offers valuable insights into the complex dynamics of care, criminality, and migration in contemporary societies.

Weight: 330g
Dimension: 156 x 235 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781978829022