Social suffering and (mis)recognition: How welfare officials respond to the critical voices of clients

Although there is not much attention for the concept of social suffering in studies on welfare policy and frontline work, it offers a valuable perspective for understanding both the harms that welfare clients endure and the ways in which state actors may either mitigate or compound this harm. Based on observations of 172 welfare encounters in the Netherlands, we contribute to the literature by empirically showing how welfare officials respond to the social suffering of clients. Officials most often misrecognized the social suffering of welfare clients by ignoring, reacting indifferently or individualizing it. Moments when they recognized it were more exceptional and took the form of empathising with the feelings of clients or acknowledging the social origin of their suffering. In the context of widespread distrust in institutions following governmental crises such as the Dutch Benefit Scandal, we believe it is important to invest more efforts in examining how and why frontline workers use their discretion to respond to people's social suffering.