Child Welfare Workers Located in the Urban Periphery: on the Geography of Discretion in Street‐Level Bureaucracies

ABSTRACT The location of public services impacts children's living and service‐reception conditions, as well as the work of child welfare service providers. Against the background of growing inequality and segregation in Sweden, this article explores the work of child welfare services when located in the urban periphery. Drawing on qualitative data collected through an ethnographic approach, this article examines the meaning of service location for child welfare social workers' exercise of discretion and provides insights into the geography of discretion in street‐level bureaucracies. The analysis shows that, on the one hand, the participating child welfare workers strove for a managerial and rule‐oriented exercise of discretion; on the other hand, this exercise was recurrently adapted to their local knowledge of the geographical area where they worked, and to local professional norms and collaborations, in order to assist their clients in accordance with their needs. The study reveals a tension between the managerialization trend and the opportunities to meet the needs of citizens within a specific local geographical area. Furthermore, the article suggests that locating services in an urban periphery facilitates child welfare workers' opportunities to meet client needs, as they become embedded in a geographically contingent social infrastructure.