Rethinking street-level bureaucracy: everyday bordering and networks of enactment and resistance in mixed welfare economies

Abstract This paper brings together Lipsky’s street-level bureaucracy framework and the concept of everyday bordering to interrogate mechanisms through which diverse social care professions – working with migrant families – enact and/or resist the UK’s hostile policies towards immigration. We show that, in contexts of mixed welfare provision, and hostile bordering practices, who is an actor in policy implementation is unclear. Instead, we conceptualise that ‘networks of support’ services develop, which are characterised by provision: directly provided by the state; commissioned by the state but delivered by non-governmental organisations (NGOs); and funded by independent bodies and delivered by NGOs. In turn, we theorise that ‘networks of enactment’ and ‘networks of resistance’ develop, whereby practice interactions simultaneously perpetuate and dilute hostile environment ideologies. By delineating these networks, we offer new ways of distinguishing between the types of bordering practices that occur in social care provision within mixed welfare economies – these being ‘statutory bordering’, ‘co-opted bordering’ and ‘shadow bordering’ – as well as strategies employed to resist state exclusionary bordering practices. In doing so, we advance the theories of everyday bordering and street level bureaucracy, offering a more nuanced perspective on the relationship between the state and diverse social care professions.