The paradoxes of failure in post‐welfare: an auto‐ethnography of caregiver labour for disabled persons in New York State

Abstract

AbstractIn conditions of post‐welfare, failure takes a variety of forms. I offer an auto‐ethnographic account of state‐funded caregiving for people diagnosed with intellectual and developmental disabilities in New York State, where both caregiver labour and its management have been subjected to greater discipline as post‐welfare initiatives seek to re‐educate recipients of benefits and careworkers to be simultaneously more autonomous from and more accountable to the state. Placing these changes within the specific history of failed disability care in the United States, I explain how new disciplinary devices for reporting further alienate caregiver labour and complicate welfare management in practice.