AUYERO - Patients of the State. an Ethnographic Account of Poor People’s Waiting

7232019 AUYERO - Patients of the State an Ethnographic Account of Poor Peoplersquos Waiting

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Latin American Research Review Vol 46 No 1 copy 2011 by the Latin American Studies Association

PAT I E N T S O F T H E S T AT E

An Ethnographic Account of Poor Peoplersquos Waiting

Javier AuyeroUniversity of Texas at Austin

Abstract Drawing on six months of ethnographic 1047297eldwork in the main welfare of- 1047297ce of the city of Buenos Aires this article dissects poor peoplersquos lived experiences ofwaiting The article examines the welfare of1047297ce as a site of intense sociability amidst

pervasive uncertainty Poor peoplersquos waiting experiences persuade the destitute ofthe need to be patient thus conveying the implicit state request to be compliant cli-ents An analysis of the sociocultural dynamics of waiting helps us understand how(and why) welfare clients become not citizens but patients of the state

INTRODUCTION

Waiting writes Pierre Bourdieu (2000) in Pascalian Meditations is one ofthe ways of experiencing the effects of power ldquoMaking people wait de-laying without destroying hope adjourning without totally disappoint-

ingrdquo are according to Bourdieu (2000 228) integral parts of the workingof domination Although the social sciences have thoroughly examinedlinks between power and time waiting (as both temporal region and anactivity with intricate relationships with the constitution and reproduc-tion of submission) remains with the exceptions noted herein ldquohardlymapped and badly documentedrdquo (Schweizer 2008 1) Understandably soattention to waiting and its (apparent) related inaction goes against thesocial sciencesrsquo preferred focus on individual and collective action onthe event as that ldquohistorical fact that leaves a unique and singular trace

one that marks history by its particular and inimitable consequencesrdquo(Dumoulins qtd in Tarrow 1996 587)Writing precisely about this absence Bourdieu (2000 228) asserts that

we need to ldquocatalogue and analyze all the behaviors associated with the

Special thanks to Shila Vilker Nadia Finck and Agustiacuten Burbano de Lara who workedas research assistants for this project Many thanks also to Matthew Desmond MeganComfort Rodrigo Hobert Loiumlc Wacquant Lauren Joseph and Christine Williams for theircritical comments on different versions of this article Previous versions of this article werepresented at the Lozano Long Conference at the University of Texas at Austin and at the

Instituto Gino Germani (University of Buenos Aires) The National Science FoundationAward SES-0739217 and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at theUniversity of Texas at Austin provided funding for this project



983094 Latin American Research Review

exercise of power over other peoplersquos time both on the side of the pow-erful (adjourning deferring delaying raising false hopes or converselyrushing taking by surprise) and on the side of the lsquopatientrsquo as they say inthe medical universe one of the sites par excellence of anxious powerlesswaitingrdquo Drawing on six months of ethnographic 1047297eldwork in a welfareof1047297ce this article makes a 1047297rst step toward the construction of such a cata-log focusing on poor peoplersquos waiting experiences

The article begins with a brief survey of the scarce sociological work onthe experiences of waiting and extracts from it a few broad analytical les-sons After a general description of the methods that served in gatheringour empirical data and of the physical site where ethnographic 1047297eldworkwas carried out I present the story of one exemplary waiter a sort of Od-

ysseyrsquos Penelope of the welfare of1047297ce which summarizes as a really exist-ing ideal type the many facets of the shared experiences of waiting Themain three sections of the article examine the welfare of1047297ce as a site of in-tense sociability amid pervasive uncertainty The article shows that dur-ing the long hours they spend in the welfare of1047297ce in search of a solutionto their urgent needs poor people experience uncertainty confusion andarbitrariness Taken together I argue these waiting experiences persuadethe destitute of the need to be patient thus conveying the implicit state re-quest to be compliant clients An analysis of the sociocultural dynamics of

waiting thus helps us understand how (and why) welfare clients becomenot citizens but patients of the state

TIME POWER AND THE (SCANT) SOCIOLOGY OF WAITING

The manifold ways in which human beings in their lifeworlds thinkand feel about (and act on) time have been the subject of much scholarlywork in the social sciencesmdashfrom general treatments (Sorokin and Merton1937 Hall 1959 Schutz 1964 Durkheim 1965 Giddens 1986 Munn 1992

Levine 1997 Flaherty 1999) to more empirically informed ones many ofthem based on ethnographic work (Roth 1963 Mann 1969 Geertz 1973Zerubavel 1979 Young 2004 Flaherty Freidin and Sautu 2005) The re-lationships between the workings of power and the experiences of timehave also been the object of many a social scienti1047297c analysis Time for ex-ample has been examined as a crucial dimension in the workings of giftexchanges (Bourdieu 1977) and in the operation of patronage networks(Scott and Kerkvliet 1977 Auyero 2001) In both those cases the objectivetruth of the (usually unequal) exchanges needs to be misrecognized sothat the exchanges can function smoothly (Bourdieu 1998 Ortner 2006)Time these analyses demonstrate is responsible for the veiling

Temporality historical and ethnographic works illustrate is manipu-lable It can be the object of an incessant process of bargaining as Roth(1963) shows in his insightful ethnography of the ways patients and doc-



PATIENTS OF THE STATE 983095

tors jointly structure the passage of time in a tuberculosis hospital it can be the object of frantic marking as Cohen and Taylor (1972) examine intheir phenomenology of the security wing of an English prison Time canalso be the target of a constant onslaught as Willis (1977) illustrates inhis dissection of the ladsrsquo rejections of the schoolrsquos arduously constructedtimetable or the medium through which discipline is imposed and ne-gotiated as Thompson (1994) demonstrates in his classic analysis of thechanges in the inward notations of time at the early stages of industrialcapitalism Collective time senses are deeply intertwined with the work-ings of (and resistance to) social domination Time these works expose isthe locus of con1047298ict but also and as important of acquiescence (see alsoHochschild 2001 Jacobs and Gerson 2004)

Waiting as a particular experience of time has not received the samescholarly attention Highlighting the ubiquity of this experience the es-sayist Edna OrsquoBrien (1995 177) writes ldquoEveryone I know is waitingrdquo Hint-ing at the sense of powerlessness that comes with waiting she continuesldquoand almost everyone I know would like to rebut it since it is slightlydemeaning reeks of helplessness and show we are not fully in commandof ourselvesrdquo (OrsquoBrien 1995 177) Pace OrsquoBrien waiting does not affect ev-erybody in the same waymdashnor does everybody experience it in a similarfashion The sociologist Barry Schwartz (1974 1975) has probably done the

most to show that waiting is strati1047297ed that there are variations in waitingtime that are socially patterned and that respond to power differentialsThe unequal distribution of waiting time tends to correspond with thatof power As Schwartz (1974 847) puts it in his classic study of queuesas social systems ldquoTypical relationships obtain between the individualsrsquoposition within a social system and the extent to which he waits for andis waited for by other members of the system In general the more pow-erful and important a person is the more othersrsquo access to him must beregulatedrdquo

To be kept waiting he continues ldquoespecially to be kept waiting an un-usually long time is to be the subject of an assertion that onersquos own time(and therefore onersquos social worth) is less valuable than the time and worthof the one who imposes the waitrdquo (Schwartz 1974 856 on the demean-ing effects of waiting see Comfort 2008) Schwartz established the basiccontours of a sociology of waiting Since then however the differentialexperiences of that (unequally distributed) waiting time (and the activitiesthat appearances to the contrary go with it) have received little empiricalattention and no systematic treatment

Extensive waiting periods the scant research on the subject showsldquowearyrdquo people (Fox Piven and Cloward 1971 160) andor act as ob-stacles to access particular programs (Redko Rapp and Carlson 2006)If frequent contact with long queues molds peoplersquos subjectivities (Com-fort 2008) how is that to quote Bourdieu (2000 228) the ldquointerested aim-




ing at something greatly durablymdashthat is to say for the whole durationof the expectancymdashmodi1047297es the behavior of the person who lsquohangsrsquo aswe say on the awaited decisionrdquo If delays are not only suffered but alsointerpreted (Schwartz 1975) what meanings do those who are routinelyforced to wait attribute to the waiting And if waiting makes the waiterfeel ldquodependent and subordinaterdquo (Schwartz 1975 856) how does waitingproduce the subjective effects of dependency and subordination In otherwords how does objective waiting become subjective submission Theseare the general questions that guided this projectrsquos ethnographic researchin the waiting area of the main welfare of1047297ce (Ministerio de DesarrolloSocial) in the city of Buenos Aires

A Note on Methods

Between August 2008 and January 2009 the project team conductedteam ethnographic 1047297eldwork at this site For the 1047297rst two months three to1047297ve hours and four times a week we sat alongside current and prospec-tive welfare recipients in the waiting room and observed their interactions(among them and between them and welfare agents) The starting pointfor the 1047297eldwork was quite simple what happens while people hang outin the welfare of1047297ce with apparently nothing else to do other than wait

for their bene1047297t We paid particular attention to whether they were aloneor in groups to the way they managed to keep their children entertainedand to everything they did while waiting for a welfare agent to call themWe also observed and took note of clientsrsquo interactions with agents focus-ing on speech and body language

After we familiarized ourselves with the setting and its inhabitantswe began the interviews We conducted sixty-nine interviews (forty-three with noncitizens and twenty-six with citizens 87 percent of inter-viewees were women) which lasted between thirty and ninety minutes

We stopped interviewing when we found no further variation along thedimensions that interested us Interviews typically began with a gen-eral inquiry about the welfare clientsrsquo reasons to be applying for a spe-ci1047297c bene1047297t This enabled us to reconstruct the clientsrsquo trajectory into theworld of welfare We then focused on the following nine dimensions(1) general evaluations of the working of the welfare of1047297ce and things at-tendants think are working well and things they believe should be im-proved (2) perceptions of requirements to access welfare and informa-tion about paydays (3) reasons they have been given to explain lack ofpayments or cancellation of a program (4) times they have been asked tocome back for the same claim and reasons they have been given for sucha request (5) comparison between the time they have to wait at the of1047297cewith waiting times at other public institutions (they came up with theirown comparison) (6) views of others who are waiting alongside them




(7) views of the welfare agents (8) whether they come alone or in groupsand (9) ways to 1047297nd out about the particular program they are trying toaccess We also asked about the times they had come to the of1047297ce before(and for what reason) and about whether at the time of the interview theyknew if andor when they would receive the bene1047297t andor payment Thislatter question served as a rough indicator of the uncertainty regardingthe workings of each program Interviews were carried out in Spanishand then translated by the author We did not tape-record them but tran-scribed verbatim as soon as the interview was over Interviewees werenot compensated for their time At the beginning of each interview weinformed participants that we were part of a team of university studentsand faculty conducting a study on the workings of the welfare of1047297ce

Pulled together observations and interviews allowed us to reconstructas completely as possible the shared experience of waiting We found thatfor most of our interviewees waiting is a modal experience they have towait for almost everything (eg housing health services employment)But the waiting at the welfare of1047297ce has some particular features to whichI now turn attention

THE (PHYSICAL) SITE

According to of1047297cial documents (Ciudad Autoacutenoma de Buenos Aires2008) there are twelve different programs administered at the central wel-fare of1047297ce of the city of Buenos Aires However most of the people we ob-served and interviewed were waiting for a decision or a payment on oneof the following three cash-transfer programs Nuestras Familias (NF)the Ticket Social (TS) andor a housing subsidy (HS) The of1047297ce servesArgentine nationals and documented foreigners (most of them recent mi-grants from Bolivia Paraguay Uruguay and Brazil) There are no citizen-ship restrictions on accessing any of these plans provided that recipients

can show proof of residence in the city of Buenos AiresThe welfare waiting room is then a universe where much like in thedaily life of many poor neighborhoods in the city Argentines and mi-grants from neighboring countries come together in what Goffman (1961)would call a ldquofocused gatheringrdquomdashthat is a set of individuals involved ina common 1047298ow of action and relating to one another in terms of that 1047298owBut above all the waiting room is a world of women and children whoare seeking urgent help they live in what Ehrenreich (2001) has referredto as a state of emergency Many of the women were raising their childrenalone or with the help of family members other than the childrenrsquos fathersIn fact many cited the fatherrsquos desertion as the main reason they endedup asking for one or more welfare bene1047297tsmdashanother frequently cited rea-son was (personal or partnersrsquo) illness Those claiming an HS predictablycome to the welfare of1047297ce after an eviction During the eviction (either




Figure 1 Waiting in line (by Agustiacuten Burbano de Lara)

from illegally occupied houses or from rental properties they couldnrsquot af-ford to pay) state personnel informed them about the HS distributed atthe welfare of1047297ce

As with the welfare rooms that Hays (2003 85) examined in Flat Brokewith Children this one was characterized by the ldquoubiquity of childrenrdquo andmuch like in Haysrsquos cases ldquothe cries of hungry or frustrated or sad or dis-gruntled children the laughter and chatter of playing children the lsquoincon-veniencersquo of children whom you trip over children who are seeking amuse-

ment and children who demand a space in your laprdquo (85) dominate muchof the roomrsquos landscape Babies are fed and changed in public (there are nochanging stations) Children run or crawl around the usually dirty 1047298oor

Comfortrsquos (2008) insightful ethnographic account of the ldquoagonizinglylong and uncertainrdquo (50) waiting in the Tube at San Quentin State Prisonmdashthe site where four days a week inmatesrsquo wives girlfriends mothers andrelatives wait for permission to visit their loved onesmdashcan be reproducedalmost word by word to describe the general disposition of the bodiesinside the waiting room of the welfare agency

Seated or standing adults pace 1047297dget and rock while their children squirmholler whine and cry Pregnant women perch awkwardly on the narrow benchessupporting their bellies with their hands because they cannot recline far enoughto relieve their backs of the weight of their wombs Mothers of infants clumsily




Figure 2 Baby crawling in waiting room (picture by Nadia Finck)

assemble feeding bottles and apply fresh diapers in the absence of clean watersanitary surfaces or changing tables [The roomrsquos] acoustics amplify and echoevery outburst squeal tantrum and reprimand and visitors brace themselvesagainst this cacophony while shivering with cold slumping with fatigue (45)

Comfortrsquos description also directs attention to the general conditionsin which the waiting takes place The waiting room at the welfare of1047297cehas only 1047297fty-four plastic seats for a welfare population that far exceedsthat number As a result on numerous occasions (especially in the morn-

ing hours) the hundreds of (current and potential) clients who pass dailythrough the of1047297ce must wait for hours standing andor leaning againstthe walls andor sitting on the 1047298oor High windows prevent much naturallight from entering the roommdashwhite 1047298uorescent tubes provide most of thelight The room lacks a good ventilation system a running heating sys-tem and air-conditioning (of the six existing ceiling fans two were work-ing) it is extremely cold in the morning hours during the winter monthsand unbearably hot by noon during the summer months

By the time the of1047297ce closes its doors (usually around 4 pm) remainsof food bottles used napkins spilled sodas even used cotton swabshave piled up on the 1047298oors of the waiting room Every now and then wealso found vomit and dirty disposable diapers but no cleaning personnelshowed up during the hours we were there After a few hours of opera-




Figure 3 Waiting grounds (picture by Nadia Finck)

tion the bathrooms have also become dirty (we never found soap or toiletpaper in them)1

MILAGROSrsquoS TRIAL

In the back of the welfare of1047297ce waiting room twenty-seven-year-

old Milagros plays with two little children one is her two-year-old son Joaquiacuten Milagros is Peruvian and she has been ldquoin this thingrdquo (the wayshe refers to the paperwork at the welfare of1047297ce) for a year and a halfShe is a bene1047297ciary of two programs (NF and Subsidio Habitacional anHS program) The HS is ldquolaterdquo she tells us ldquobecause therersquos no paydayscheduled for foreignersrdquo She has been told that with a national ID cardldquoeverything would go fasterrdquo but without it ldquotherersquos not much they candordquo She has the precariamdashliterally ldquoprecariousrdquomdashresident status She be-gan the paperwork to obtain a national ID card four months ago but shehas to wait ldquofor a resolution at least one more yearrdquo

1 Together with the uncertain and arbitrary delays described herein these minor indig-nities amount to what Piven and Cloward (1971) refer to as ritual degradation of a pariahclass




She oftentimes walks to the welfare of1047297ce itrsquos a mile and a half walk but it saves her much-needed cash Since giving birth she canrsquot carry muchweight on her so the days Joaquiacutenrsquos grandmother canrsquot babysit Milagrostakes the bus with him The bus fare which is expensive for her is notthe only reason she avoids coming with him Waiting she says is ldquoboringand tiringrdquo for her and her son Waiting she adds is ldquocostlyrdquomdashreferring tothe expenses she incurs every time her son demands ldquosomething to drinkor to eatrdquo from the little stand located in the back of the welfare area Inher nickel-and-dimed life a one-dollar treat and a thirty-cent bus ride areluxuries she cannot afford In this and many other respects Milagrosrsquosis not an isolated story During one of our 1047297rst observations a motherscolded her daughter saying ldquoYou are making me spend a fortune Thatrsquos

it Irsquoll buy you a chocolate milk in the afternoonrdquo Dozens of intervieweestold us similar stories

Milagros learned about welfare bene1047297ts from a social worker at thehospital where she gave birth When she 1047297rst attempted to apply shecame to the welfare of1047297ce at dawn ldquoAt 4 am they were giving thirtyslots and I was number thirty-two I thought they were going to attend[to] me but they didnrsquotrdquo The next day she came ldquoearlier at 11 pm[of the night before] I waited outside all night long but there was somesort of problem and they didnrsquot open the of1047297ce that day That was a long

waitrdquo She then waited three more months One day she came back atnoon and was told to come earlier in the morning She did the paperworkand received the housing subsidy for one month Because the owner ofthe apartment she was renting ldquodid not have everything in orderrdquo hersubsidy was abruptly terminated She had to start the paperwork allover again to receive two more installments after which she ceased to beeligible

Milagros makes US$9 per day taking care of an elderly couple and shecanrsquot afford to miss a day of work When she comes to the welfare of1047297ce

she meets with friends and they talk about how agents give them theldquorunaroundrdquo ldquoYou feel despondent here [te desanimas]rdquo she tells us ldquobe-cause [welfare agents] tell you to come on day X You ask for permissionat work and then you 1047297nd out that they have not deposited the money Ilose one day at work I think the aid is a good thing but well I donrsquotthink itrsquos fair that they make you wait so long and that sometimes theymake you come here for nothing [te hacen venir al pedo] They tell youto come on Monday and then Wednesday and then Friday and thoseare working daysrdquo

Milagros does not know whether she will receive the subsidy todayThe last time she came to this of1047297ce she ldquoleft with nothingrdquo She felt ldquoim-potentrdquo and cried a lot at home she tells us but she says ldquoHere I didnrsquotsay anythingrdquo She desperately needs the city government monies to paythe rent and to feed her son




Milagrosrsquos story contains several patterns detected in the waiting ex-periences of other welfare recipients Contrary to our initial visual im-pressions regarding the isolation of those who wait waiting is doublyrelational First people like Milagros learn about available welfare ben-e1047297ts from trusted others (friends and relatives) andor from social work-ers Second clients and potential clients awaiting a decision on their casesor a payment are usually not alone in the waiting rooms They create ormobilize a set of relations or networks that allow for them to spend longhours there While there they often meet with friends and relatives whohelp them tolerate and make sense of those boring and tiring hours

Waiting Milagrosrsquos story also teaches us is a process not a one-shotevent The overwhelming majority of those we interviewed in the wait-

ing room had gone through some version of what with Kafkarsquos JosefK in mind (The Trial 19461998) we could call ldquothe trialrdquo of welfare AsMilagrosrsquos story of endless hassles illustrates this process is much likeKafkarsquos pervaded by uncertainty and arbitrariness (and resultant frustra-tion) Other cases show that it is also a process dominated by persistentconfusions and misunderstandings

Finally Milagrosrsquos one-line statement regarding what she did (or didnot do) when forced to wait suspended in uncertainty (ldquohere I didnrsquot sayanythingrdquo) and her feelings at the time (ldquoimpotentrdquo) point to what is prob-

ably the most dif1047297cult challenging aspect to be dissected about the expe-rience of waiting (and the reason I believe it should be studied in the 1047297rstplace) why do most of the poor people we observed and talked to most ofthe time put up with the uncertain confusing and arbitrary waiting Thewhy of their compliance is in the how How do they spend that dead timeHow do they make sense of think and feel about the long hours of wait

Milagros carved out the work for us In what follows I examine poorpeoplersquos waiting as a relational process characterized by uncertainty con-fusion and arbitrariness I also explore the ways lived waiting produces

certain symbolic effects on the frequent visitors of this simultaneouslyspatial and temporal region Everything in the experience of waiting con-spires to teach welfare clients like Milagros a lessonmdashldquokeep waiting bepatient therersquos nothing you can do about the endless queuesrdquo Welfareclients learn in practice to be patients of the state

THE (TEMPORAL) SITE SOCIABILITY AMID UNCERTAINTY

In the now-classic piece ldquoBanana Timerdquo B Roy (1959 158) describes agroup of workers who develop a series of games (ldquotimesrdquo and ldquothemesrdquo)to deal with the ldquoformidable beast of monotonyrdquo prevalent in the factoryWelfare clients confront a similar beast In almost every single one of ourinterviews and our innumerable informal conversations (with us andoverheard) clients (current and prospective) referred to the tedious wait-




ing time in frustrating terms The following brief 1047297eld note excerpt fromOctober 1 summarizes this shared nuisance

Mother yells to her 4-year-old who is running around ldquoDiana please stop wehave to waitrdquo Her number is called She comes back in loud voice she tells no onein particular ldquoOh no it canrsquot be it canrsquot be What are we going to do for somany hours hererdquo

As noted earlier many current or prospective clients come to the wel-fare of1047297ce with their children They also come together with their neigh- bors andor develop informal interactions in the waiting room Clients bring and share food during breakfast and lunchmdashinnumerable times weobserved (mostly) women having their meals together and sharing the

care of the little ones In a space dominated by countless urgencies regard-ing access to food and housing and as we will see here by confusion anduncertainty about the actual workings of the welfare programs informalinteractions also serve to exchange information about existing soup kitch-ens the availability and prices of housing in the city required paperworkfor a speci1047297c welfare plan (and the dif1047297culties of obtaining this or thatdocument) and other welfare programs of the city andor federal govern-ment (eg which one has been usually abruptly canceled or which one isaccepting applicants) Although these interactions do not take the regular

form that B Roy (1959) describes (ie we did not identify anything akin toa banana time a peach time or a Coke time) they help clients avoid thetedium (and fatigue tediumrsquos ldquotwin brotherrdquo according to Roy) They alsoinformally diffuse information about formal state requirements

While they wait welfare clients keep themselves busy They play withtheir children they feed the little ones and change their diapers theywalk around they leave the building for a smoke break they buy snacksfrom the stand and negotiate with their children about prices and por-tions they play games on their cellular phones and occasionally they read

the newspaper (we twice saw clients reading paid newspaper editionsfor the most part they read the free newspapers available throughout thecity in subways and kiosks) In other words their waiting is active andrelational

Together with the informal interactions that characterize this space a1047297rst-time visitor can easily sense the disorganization of the waiting roomand the sudden changes that await those who venture there ldquoLetrsquos dothisrdquo screams a welfare agent from behind the counter ldquoTwo linesrdquo ldquoEv-erybody against the wallrdquo another one commands Our 1047297eld notes are1047297lled with expressions like the following again coming from behind thecounter ldquoGuys all of those with numbers please have a seatrdquo (at thetime we recorded this there were no seats available) ldquoWersquoll call you buttake a seatrdquo ldquoPlease be quiet All those waiting for the NF hererdquo ldquoEvery- body against the wall pleaserdquo




Field note October 1 A woman comes out from behind the counter and scream-ing in a teacher-like voice says ldquoLetrsquos get some order Those who are for the NFhere The rest against the wall They will call you by namerdquo As a result a long line

is formed in the middle of the room Thirty minutes later the line is dissolvedEverything is chaotic today

The waiting room is disorganized and puzzling for 1047297rst-time visitorsand for recurrent ones

Field note September 11 Two ticket number counters are working today One ison number 52 the other one signals number 47 A man from the counter is callingnumber 92 Therersquos a waiting line in front of the door (and the security guards)that separates the waiting room from the of1047297ces Plus therersquos another line at thevery entrance of the building There are 1047297ve different but unmarked ldquowaiting

zonesrdquo within the same roomField note October 2 A woman asks me if I think Monday will be a holiday Theytold her to come back on Monday (October 12 is a holiday in Argentina) I tell herthat if they instructed her to come back on Monday it is because it will not be aholiday I assume they donrsquot give appointments for impossible days The womancorrects me and tells me that the last time they gave her a Sunday appointmentAs I later 1047297nd out she was right They have given her an appointment for a wrongdaymdashMonday is a holiday

This objective disorganization 1047297nds its subjective correlates in the ex-

periences of uncertainty arbitrariness and confusion Writing about thenineteenth-century English proletariat Friedrich Engels (1973 139) de-scribes a class that ldquoknows no security in liferdquo a class that is a ldquoplay-ballto a thousand chancesrdquo Those waiting in the welfare of1047297ce 1047297t this de-scription well As we described previously their lives are constantly onthe edge of disaster or in the midst of itmdashthey have recently been evictedor they are about to be they have just lost their jobs they are seriouslysick their spouses recently left them with three or four or more smallchildren to be cared for and no source of household income andor any

combination of the foregoing Once they come into the welfare waitingroom the insecurity does not stopMany of our subjects describe their waiting in ways that echo Engelsrsquos

depiction of lives far away in time and place ldquoThey kick us around like ballsrdquo (nos pelotean) The simple statement encapsulates the pervasive un-certainty and arbitrariness of the lived experience of waiting The over-whelming majority of our subjects know when to come (the earlier the better) to the of1047297ce most of them however donrsquot know when they willleave As Noemiacute laments while sitting in one of the few unoccupied chairsldquoI told my husband lsquoIrsquom going to the welfare of1047297ce donrsquot know whenIrsquom coming backrdquo

The uncertainty about the time they will spend there comes togetherwith the uncertainty regarding the outcome More than half (59 percent)




of our interviewees do not know if andor when they will receive the bene1047297t they came to ask for This uncertainty does not vary by program(whether they are asking for a housing subsidy or food assistance) or bycitizenship status of the claimantmdashthe not knowing is equally distributedamong Argentine citizens and foreigners In other words noncitizens arenot overrepresented among those who donrsquot know if andor when theywill become bene1047297ciaries The speci1047297c rules regulations and bene1047297ts ofeach welfare program do not seem to affect the level of knowledge peopledemonstrate about their claims This straightforward 1047297gure does not saymuch about what is a much more interesting sociological phenomenonnamely the protracted process poor claimants have to traverse everytime they need urgent aid a process and a web that remind us again of

Josef Krsquos pilgrimage The following conversation takes place as So1047297a andHilda are awaiting a decision on two different welfare programs Theirdoubts their feelings and the actual outcome of their petition vividly il-lustrate what I would call following Bourdieu (2000) an instituted disor-der As we will see in the following section this disorder is presented tothe client as an order from the arbitrary dicta of a computer machine

Field note December 11 2008 Sofiacutea is in her early 30s and she moved to Argentinafrom Paraguay in 1999 She 1047297rst came to the welfare of1047297ce when she was evictedfrom her rental apartment Hilda is 28 and moved from Paraguay in 1998 When

her husband left her she quickly ran out of money to pay for the rentmdashshe wasabout to be evicted when a neighborhood social worker told her to come to theof1047297ce With two small kids she is having trouble 1047297nding a place to livemdashldquohotelswonrsquot take you with childrenrdquo she tells me echoing what we heard repeatedlyfrom poor mothers who are raising their kids alone

They have been at the welfare of1047297ce for 40 minutes already when I meet themSofiacutea addresses the issue of the long waiting right from the start ldquoBut you can behere for three or four hoursrdquo Why I ask ldquoThatrsquos exactly what wersquod like to knowwhy do we have to wait that long Afterward they tell you therersquos no money andthat you have to come back some other dayrdquo Sofiacutea began her paperwork for the

NF 5 months ago She received her 1047297rst check this week but she was expectinga sum three times higher ldquoThey suspended my payments three times alreadySupposedly Irsquoll get paid todayrdquo She is also a bene1047297ciary of the HS ldquobut Irsquom not

being paid I donrsquot know whatrsquos going onrdquo Someone at the counter calls Sofiacutea Sheleaves Like Sofiacutea Hilda does not know if and when she will receive her checkldquoLast year I didnrsquot get paid They told me lsquoWe canrsquot do anything about it [Theysay] it is what it isrsquordquo

Sofiacutea comes back and tells me that her payment was suspended again ldquoThey toldme to come back on December 30 Irsquove been waiting since July I donrsquot know whatwersquore going to do Thatrsquos what pisses me offrdquo

We then talk about the required paperwork and they agree that it is ldquotoo dif1047297cultrdquoldquoThey always give you an excuse They ask you for some document then theyask for it again and again and you have to come back at 5 am Now they areattending quickly but therersquos no money Damnrdquo




Both of them have come to this of1047297ce many times before And many times theyhave been ldquore-scheduledrdquo (term used by state agents and bene1047297ciaries alike todescribe the delay in the payments) It is now Hildarsquos turn She goes to the counter

and quickly comes back She is also ldquore-scheduledrdquo ldquoThey told me that there isonly one payment left Originally there [were] four but now itrsquos only one I donrsquotknow why Thatrsquos what the computer saysrdquo (emphasis added)

The welfare recipients described by Hays (2003 7) mostly complainabout the hassles to obtain welfare and much like some of the bene1047297ciarieswe encounter point to the ldquohuge number of ridiculous regulationsrdquo thatmake their already-miserable life even more wretched Hays describes auniverse (that of welfare reform in the United States) in which confusionsmisunderstandings and frustrations over the rules requirements proce-

dures and sanctions 1047297nds parallels in the world of Buenos Aires welfareHowever for people like Sofiacutea Hilda and many others the main issuesare not so much the paperwork or requirements but the unpredictabilityof the process Some of them complain about the ldquodif1047297cult paperworkrdquo but what really bothers most of them is the long waiting period with aninsecure result As twenty-three-year-old Isabelmdashwho migrated fromPeru two years ago and who is waiting for NF paymentsmdashsuccinctly saidldquoYou donrsquot know when you are going to be paidrdquo

More than half of interviewees bring up the issue of waiting in a public

hospital to compare with waiting at the welfare of1047297ce Although they allagree that waiting in the hospital is ldquoterriblerdquo and ldquoawfulrdquo and they re-mark that they ldquoalwaysrdquo have to wait there they also know as Isabel com-ments that in a hospital ldquothey will attend to you no matter whatrdquo Bothwaiting lines they all concur are long (ldquoyou can spend the entire day at thehospitalrdquo) both waiting times demand their endurance and serenity (ldquoweall know how it isrdquo or ldquothere is not much you can do about itrdquo) The hospitalline is to most ldquomore dramaticrdquo (because they usually attend the hospitalwhen they are seriously sick or when their children need immediate as-

sistance) By contrast ldquohere [in the welfare of1047297ce] the waiting is indecisive[indecisa]rdquo As Isabel says capturing well the randomness of the entire pro-cess ldquoI think Irsquoll be paid at Christmas which is when miracles occurrdquo

As stated previously noncitizens do not have a monopoly on uncer-tainty nor is it restricted to the admission stage it affects the operationof the programs as a whole Noemiacute age 1047297fty-1047297ve is an Argentine citizenAccording to her she was in the of1047297ce ldquobecause of an administrative er-ror they delayed my payment for a week plus the three or four hoursof waiting hererdquo Apparently mistakes are not the only source of intermit-tence in the welfare payments In Noemiacutersquos experience (as in that of most bene1047297ciaries we interviewed) haphazardness is a built-in characteristicof city welfare programs Once clients are admitted in other words theirpayments can be suspended or delayed for reasons unknown to most ofour interviewees ldquoIf the hotel owners were not merciful they would kick




us out because well nobody tells you when you are going to be paidThey [welfare agents] tell you itrsquos going to be on the 1047297fth and they payyou on the fourteenthrdquo Noemiacute is also the bene1047297ciary of another welfareprogram (a cash-transfer program) that is equally unpredictable ldquoEverymonth they put money in your account for you to spend Well itrsquos a wayof putting it Sometimes it is every forty days Do you know how shamefulyou feel when you go to the supermarket you buy all this stuff and thenyou have to leave it there with the cashier because your [welfare] card hasno fundsrdquo

ldquoThey tell you one thing and then anotherrdquo says forty-1047297ve-year-oldRosa angrily (she is a Peruvian national petitioning for a housing subsidy)summarizing what goes on in the welfare of1047297ce Rosa ended our hour-

long conversation crying ldquoIrsquom a grown-up person and they tell me [come]tomorrow [come] tomorrow [come] tomorrowrdquo Probably the best morestraightforward examples of this lived uncertainty are the innumerabletimes we heard clients ask each other ldquoDo you know if they are paying to-dayrdquo Thus much like in the TB sanatoria that Roth (1963) examined lackof accurate information regarding programs and paydays characterizesthe welfare room As we often heard ldquoNobody knows anything hererdquo

The Fetishism of the Bene1047297t

The following dialogue (recorded as we were seeking permission toconduct our 1047297eldwork) describes a typical interaction between a stateagent and a claimant The interaction was typical in that the agent wascordial but the outcome uncertain It is also typical in the extreme deper-sonalization the computer system is presented as responsible for schedul-ing the payments No human actor is deemed responsible for delays andsuspensions Despite the of1047297cialrsquos polite handling of the case the reasonsfor rescheduling payment always remain obscure Because the only onewho really ldquoknowsrdquo when the payment will be made is the computer com-

plaints andor negotiations are precluded Rescheduling is automatic andnot open to appeal

Field note September 18 State agent (SA) [referring to the program NF] Did youever get paidBene1047297ciary (B) No because I had my baby and couldnrsquot come because he was toolittle SA [interrupting] You are Gutierrez arenrsquot youB nods af1047297rmativelySA You never got paid The system re-programs the installments by itself Youhave to come back on October 2 You will then have two installments ready to bepaid For the time being everything is suspended but come anyways

I would not be paying much attention to this seemingly trivial interac-tion if not for the fact that the payment postponements which are routine




occurrences in the welfare of1047297ce we observed were continuously justi-1047297ed in terms of the computerrsquos pronouncements The payments are ldquore-programmedrdquo and so are the welfare bene1047297ciaries ldquoYoursquove been repro-grammedrdquo state agents tell clients ldquoIrsquove been reprogrammedrdquo subjectsechoed In this way the ldquomystical veilrdquo (Marx 1887 84) of the computerprogram disguises the politics of welfare The actual administration of bene1047297ts remains a ldquosecret hidden under the apparent 1047298uctuationsrdquo (Marx1887 77) of a software program The social and political relations betweenmen and women between citizens and the state at the basis of welfareassumes in everybodyrsquos eyes ldquothe fantastic formrdquo of relation betweena check and a computer As the following interaction illustrates the fe-tishism of the bene1047297t remains suspended in doubt and creates confusion

throughout the time the client is eligible for welfareField note September 18 Looking at the computer screen talking to (but not facing)the welfare client ldquoYour next payday is October 9 You were paid [in] SeptemberAugust is delayed and it has to be reprogrammed In order to be reprogrammedcome on the 9 You will be paid October and we will reprogram you thenrdquo Clientnods and leaves

In many other 1047297eld notes we also recorded welfare agentsrsquo statementsto clients along the following lines ldquoEverything is delayed you have tocome back next week to see if there is newsrdquo ldquoNo no Itrsquos all suspendedyou have to come back next week and 1047297nd outrdquo These discursive interac-tions (in fact pronouncements) depict not only welfare distribution as aldquomysterious thingrdquo (akin to Marxrsquos commodity) but also crystal clear thedemands of the state on claimants ldquoKeep comingrdquo the agents implicitlyor explicitly tell bene1047297ciaries We donrsquot know nor do you when you willreceive actual payment but you have to keep coming The state throughits authorized spokespeople tells the poor that if they want to resolvetheir claim they must wait For how long They are never told Two moreexamples heard countless times by us and by clients suf1047297ce to depict the

constant deferrals and delays the veritable exercising of power over poorpeoplersquos time to which welfare clients are routinely exposed ldquoEverythingis late today you have to come back next week to see if there is any newsrdquoand ldquoYour next payday is November 25 You should not miss that day be-cause you are going to be paid for September Wersquoll then seerdquo

ldquoSIT DOWN AND WAITrdquo FEMALE PATIENTS OF THE STATE

Jessica is nineteen years old born and raised in Argentina She cameto renew her housing subsidy She has been waiting for four hours andas most of the people we talked to she does not know whether or whenshe will receive the bene1047297t ldquoYou come here and you donrsquot know at whattime yoursquoll leaverdquo As we are talking with her a state agent tells her from




the counter and in a very teacherlike style ldquoStay seatedrdquo She turns to usand says ldquoIf they are in a good mood they treat you wellrdquo

Jessica shares with many other recipients not only the long wait anduncertain outcome As did many others she 1047297rst heard about the housingsubsidy from a state of1047297cial who was present when other state of1047297cialswere evicting her and 1047297fteen other families with children (ldquowe were allwomen with children in towrdquo) from her room of ldquowood and metal shin-glesrdquo in a squatter settlement She thinks the welfare bene1047297t is an ldquoaid because with the scavenging I canrsquot pay for a room These days it costs atleast $450 a month [US$150] and with the scavenging I collect for the dayto day [but] I canrsquot pay the rent with itrdquo

Echoing what we heard countless of times Jessica says that obtaining

the bene1047297t takes ldquoa long time You never know when they will payyourdquo And as do many others she conceives of the waiting time as an in-dicator of clientsrsquo perseverance and thus of their ldquoreal needrdquo If you ldquoreallyneedrdquo she and many others believe ldquoyou will wait for a long timerdquo youwill ldquokeep comingrdquo and you will show state agents you are worthy of aidThis is how she puts it ldquoYou have to wait wait and wait They willnot give it to you until you come here three four 1047297ve ten times to checkto talk to ask with this one or with the other onerdquo

As many others Jessica compares this long and uncertain wait with

that of the public hospital In a statement that captures the way poor peo-ple relate to the state she adds ldquoHere and in the hospital they tell you thesame thing lsquoSit down and waitrsquo and (what do you do) you sit downand wait And if you have some money you buy a soda and a sandwichrdquo

Poor people like Jessica come to this same welfare room to ask aboutthe same welfare program or about the same overdue installments sev-eral times during the course of one month An overwhelming majorityof those we talked to said they had come to this of1047297ce on more than oneoccasion to claim the same bene1047297t or to see whether the same cash in-

stallment was (1047297nally) ready Welfare clients in other words frequentlyvisit the waiting room Thus the welfare of1047297ce is not simply a people-processing institution (Hasenfeld 1972) given clientsrsquo recurrent exposureto it and their experiences there it also is a people-changing operationthat is a patterned set of interactions with concrete subjective effects (seeComfort 2008)

Different from other places where disinformation and uncertainty give birth to a bargaining process between those who know and those who donot (Goffman 1961 Roth 1963) the waiting room is an area of compliancea universe in which you ldquosit down and waitrdquo instead of attempting to ne-gotiate with (or complain against) welfare authorities

When asked a third of our interviewees had negative comments aboutwelfare agents Most of them like Jessica grumbled about occasional mis-




treatments However in the regular course of waiting these complaintswere muted Only three times during our six months of daily observa-tions did we witness clients addressing state agents and complainingout loud Given the presentation of delays and rescheduling this is notsurprising Occasionally blame for the delays is directed toward ldquoslobrdquoagents who ldquotake too many breaksrdquo ldquowho donrsquot carerdquo ldquowho donrsquot want toworkrdquomdashto quote the most common expressions Other times the blamingpoints not to ldquolazyrdquo state agents but to those who do not deserve welfare bene1047297ts those who to quote an often-heard assertion ldquodo not need be-cause they have a business or a jobrdquo These ldquoundeservingrdquo clients accord-ing to many overburden the welfare rolls and make everyone wait longerAs every act of blaming this one invokes some standard of justice (Tilly

2007) Letrsquos listen to Milagros again ldquoTherersquos people here who donrsquot needThatrsquos not fair They have their own businessrdquo The statement is relevantnot because it describes well the welfare population we studied (we do nothave evidence to back up claims by Milagros and some others that thereare many people with stable incomes among the clients) but because itpoints to the self-understanding of the welfare population and to a symbolic boundary that organizes the experience of waiting Most people wetalked to and observed consider themselves a population in need Theycome to the welfare of1047297ce not because they have a right (in hundreds of

pages of 1047297eld notes and interviews the word right does not appear once) but because they are in need Those who do not need but who apply andobtain welfare bene1047297ts (those who ldquotake advantagerdquo) are perceived as thecause of the long waiting lines

ldquoItrsquos an aidrdquo we heard repeatedly That is how welfare clients in needunderstand their bene1047297tsmdashagain not as rights but as aid or help ldquoAndsometimes they help you and sometimes they donrsquotrdquo they frequently sayThose in need come to the welfare of1047297ce and faced with the general dis-organization and disinformation described here with the endless delays

but also with the sudden rushing of surprise paydays quickly learn thatthis is a space to be a complying ( ply comes from the Latin plicare ldquoto bendrdquo) welfare client They learn that if they want the bene1047297t they mustyield to the (arbitrary uncertain) wishes or dictates of state agents andormachines They know that they have to remain in expectation and complywith the random arbitrary operations of the welfare of1047297ce As Ramirotold us while he waited three long hours leaning against the wall ldquoYoucanrsquot complain here if you do they send you back home So you haveto stay calm hererdquo Or as many others summarized the experience for usldquoHere you have to be patient You have to arm yourself with patiencerdquo(we should also be reminded that the Latin root of patience is pati whichmeans ldquoto suffer to endurerdquo) Milagros in the opening story said it wellldquohere I didnrsquot say anythingrdquo meaning that she did not voice her discon-tent The recurrent comparison that welfare clients make between their




waiting time at public hospitals and that at the welfare of1047297ce thus takesits full meaning in both places they have to (silently) endure they haveto act not as citizens with rightful claims but as patients of the state Thedaily operations of this of1047297ce and the seemingly ordinary assertions andactions of state agents and clients jointly (but hardly cooperatively) de1047297newhat we could call following Bourdieu (1998) the ldquodoxardquo of welfaremdash(for the most part uncontested and) basic compliance with the fundamen-tal presuppositions of welfare distribution show patience wait and youmight obtain a bene1047297t from the state

Although the genderless language of the Ministerio de DesarrolloSocial (as articulated in its of1047297cial publications2) speaks of its attempt toldquoinclude excluded citizensrdquo of ldquoassistingrdquo and ldquosocially promotingrdquo

the ldquomost vulnerablerdquo families and individuals the ldquotarget populationrdquoof its focalized programs is overwhelmingly female As we noted earliermost of the women and children with whom we waited were expectingresolutions or payments from the following programs TS NF and HSThe TS (a cash-transfer program that provides a monthly check of US$25for bene1047297ciaries to purchase food and cleaning products) is restricted towomen only Although formally open to everybody the HS and the NFalso focus (mainly) on women Among the objectives of the HS is to pro-vide assistance to families in situacioacuten de calle (or to use a less euphemistic

term homeless) by ldquostrengthening the family incomerdquo devoted to payingfor shelter3 Although the target population of the bene1047297t is ldquothe familyrdquothe 1047297rst requirement points to the household compositionmdashwith specialconsideration given to ldquofemale-headed familiesrdquo Although not explicitlyarticulated in of1047297cial documents a similar gender bias affects the NFAmong its objectives is to ldquostrengthen family groupsrdquo in ldquovulnerable situ-ationsrdquo or at ldquorisk of not being able to satisfy their basic needsrdquo In practicehowever women are (again) the main target As an of1047297cial of the welfareagency told us ldquoIt is dif1047297cult for men to obtain bene1047297ts Because therersquos

the idea that if a man is of working age he has to work More bene1047297ts aregiven to mothersrdquo This gendered conception is further reinforced (andconcretized) by the ministryrsquos policies toward men In the section describ-ing the ldquostrategic objectivesrdquo for 2010 we read that the agency seeks to dothe following ldquo1 Increase social inclusion and strengthen equal oppor-tunities for the most vulnerable groups 2 Increase employment amongvulnerable fathersrdquo Under No 1 the ministryrsquos policies will pay ldquospecialattentionrdquo to the issue of violence against women with ldquolectures work-

2 See eg Guiacutea de Servicios Sociales 2009 httpestaticobuenosairesgovarareasdes_socialfortal_soc_civilguia_version_webpdf

3 All quotes come from descriptions in the social services guide published by the Minis-terio de Desarrollo Social (httpestaticobuenosairesgovarareasdes_socialfortal_soc_civilguia_version_webpdf)




shops treatment and seminarsrdquo Under No 2 it will ldquodouble the amountof job training fellowships for vulnerable fathersrdquo

Thus as we detected in the waiting room and see articulated in of1047297cialdocuments welfare is structured around women for them the state pro-vides (limited and random) welfare bene1047297ts (for shelter food and protec-tion against violence) for men it seeks to provide access to full employ-ment In my mind this represents a gender pattern that reproduces the bifurcation between male independent workers and female dependentnonworkers that scholarship on the welfare state has repeatedly noted(Pateman 1988 Fraser 1989 Gordon 1990 Orloff 1993 Haney 1996) Menare conceived of as subjects who rely on the labor market women areconstructed as submissive clients of the state Once we get down to the

level of state practice the state is doing more than simply reproducing aparticular kind of relationship with the poor structured around genderdifferences the daily work of the state structures gender hierarchy itself(see Mink 1990 Nelson 1990)

CONCLUSIONS AND TASKS AHEAD

The complex relationship between subordinated groups and the statehas been the subject of much scrutiny in historical and ethnographic re-

search (see eg D Roy 1994 Bayat 1997 Wedeen 1999 Chatterjee 2006Goldberg 2007) but for the most part it has drawn the attention of em-pirical investigation when it has broken down when it has erupted inepisodes of massive contention or explosive insurgency (for a classic state-ment on the subject see Joseph and Nugent 1994) There is much to beunderstood and explained about the cultural dynamics of daily routineengagement of the dominated in this case the urban poor with the stateand speci1047297cally about the everyday forms in which relations of subjectionare constructed

This article has provided an ethnographic outline of one type of rela-tionship between the urban poor and the state Taken together the (notvery varied) ways poor people experience their waiting at the welfare of-1047297ce point to one way in which they relate to the state (and the state tothem) what I call the patient model To be an actual or potential welfarerecipient is to be subordinated to the will of others This subordination iscreated and re-created through innumerable acts of waiting (the obverseis equally true domination is generated anew by making others wait) Inthose recurring encounters at the welfare of1047297ce poor people learn thatdespite endless delays and random changes they must comply with therequirements of agents and their machines

Welfare agents do not place much emphasis in the ldquocustoms habitsways of acting and thinkingrdquo (Foucault 2000 209) of those in need Wedid not notice the attention to (and attempt to control over) the minutest




aspects of poor peoplersquos behaviors on governing their bodies and soulson molding the ldquohabits behavior or dispositionsrdquo on which the ldquorehabili-tative functionrdquo of welfare in the United States historically placed muchemphasis (Goldberg 2007 3) which Hays (2003) detected operating at theground level in the welfare of1047297ces she so carefully studied

The welfare bureaucracy we studied introduces economy and order(ie government in Foucaultrsquos sense) by manipulating poor peoplersquos timeIt is through this practice through this ldquogoverning techniquerdquo that thestate seems to be aiming for the creation of a docile body of welfare clients(Foucault 1979 198) The patient model could thus be considered a par-ticular historically situated illustration of the productive nature of powerInterpreted in this light the ldquomundane statements by minor administra-

torsrdquo acquire a different (more relevant more consequential) sociopoliti-cal signi1047297cance (Rabinow 1984 15)

This model should not be read as a demonstration of the (presumablyperennial) passivity of poor welfare clients (this ethnography and otherqualitative research detected nothing of that sort see Edin and Lein 1997Hays 2003 Korteweg 2006) Nor should my emphasis on the subordina-tion created in repeated encounters with the welfare of1047297ce be read as anargument against state provision of welfare to the destitute The state is theldquovexed institutionrdquo (Scott 1999 7) that is the ground of both poor peoplersquos

domination and their possibilities of survival One could thus paraphraseHaysrsquos detailed analysis of welfare mothers in the age of welfare reform asfollows if the state really wants to include bene1047297ciaries as active citizens asldquofull 1047298edged participants in societyrdquo it does not make much sense to makethem wait in this zone of uncertainty If however the state is actually creat-ing subordinate subjects who do not raise their voice who ldquoknowrdquo (becausethey learn in practice) that they have to be patient then the uncertaintyand arbitrariness of the welfare of1047297ce is a very effective route for doing so

The fact that most of the welfare clients we encounter at the of1047297ce are

poor women is hardly incidental As other research has shown (Hays2003 Korteweg 2006) face-to-face interactions between representatives ofthe state and welfare-reliant women reproduce gender hierarchies outsidethe welfare of1047297ce Given the empirical analogies we found between thiswelfare of1047297ce and those others have studied the gendered dimension ofthe patient model should be further scrutinized because it points to thedaily ways in which durable inequality is being reproduced

If the analysis presented herein is correct then what remains to be seenis the dominance of the patient model of relations between poor citizensand state Is it restricted to poor people on welfare or is it applicable toother categories (and experiences) in the universe of the destitute To whatextent is the experience of being poor de1047297ned as one of waiting of alwayswaiting for borrowing from Beckettrsquos (1952) famous play a Godot who(seldom) comes To what extent in what speci1047297c social universes does




being a poor citizen in an underdeveloped state resemble that of Josef Krsquostrial in Franz Kafkarsquos 1047297ction The welfare of1047297ce is certainly not the onlyarena in which the state forces the poor to wait the experience of waitingtranscends the time and space of the waiting room Recent ethnographicwork in a polluted shantytown on the outskirts of Buenos Aires showsthat waiting (in that case for relocation) can also characterize the life ofan entire community (Auyero and Swistun 2009) Current ethnographicwork on the streets and in waiting lines of the Registro Nacional de lasPersonas (National Registry of Persons) hints at interesting similarities between the waiting experiences of the urban poor and those of the un-documented uncertainty and arbitrariness plague both

All this suggests that if we are to follow Bourdieursquos advice regarding

the need to catalog and analyze all the experiences of powerless waitingthe theoretical agenda to be developed and the empirical ground to becovered are vast and challenging Much work lies ahead

REFERENCES

Auyero J2001 Poor Peoplersquos Politics Durham NC Duke University Press

Auyero J and D Swistun2009 Flammable Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown New York Oxford

University PressBayat A1997 Street Politics New York Columbia University Press

Beckett S1952 En attendant Godot [Waiting for Godot] Paris Les Eacuteditions de Minuit

Bourdieu P1977 Outline of the Theory of Practice Cambridge Cambridge University Press1998 Practical Reason Stanford CA Stanford University Press2000 Pascalian Meditations Stanford CA Stanford University Press

Chatterjee P2006 The Politics of the Governed New York Columbia University Press

Ciudad Autoacutenoma de Buenos Aires

2008 Guiacutea de Servicios Sociales Buenos Aires Ministerio de Desarrollo SocialCohen S and L Taylor1972 Psychological Survival The Experience of Long-Term Imprisonment Middlesex UK

Penguin BooksComfort M

2008 Doing Time Together Love and Family in the Shadow of the Prison Chicago Universityof Chicago Press

Durkheim Eacute1965 The Elementary Forms of Religious Life New York Free Press

Edin K and L Lein1997 Making Ends Meet How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work New

York Russell Sage FoundationEhrenreich B

2001 Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America New York HoltEngels F

1973 The Conditions of the Working Class in England New York Oxford UniversityPress




Flaherty M1999 A Watched Pot How We Experience Time New York New York University Press

Flaherty M B Freidin and R Sautu

2005 ldquoVariation in the Perceived Passage of Time A Cross-National Studyrdquo Social Psy-chology Quarterly 68 400ndash410Foucault M

1979 Discipline and Punish New York Vintage Books2000 Power Essential Works of Foucault 1954ndash1984 New York New Press

Fox Piven F and R Cloward1971 Regulating the Poor The Functions of Public Welfare New York Vintage

Fraser N1989 Unruly Practices Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press

Geertz C1973 The Interpretation of Cultures New York Basic Books

Giddens A1986 The Constitution of Society New York Polity Press

Goffman E1961 Encounters Two Studies in the Sociology of Interaction New York Macmillan

Goldberg C2007 Citizens and Paupers Chicago University of Chicago Press

Gordon L1990 ldquoThe New Feminist Scholarship on the Welfare Staterdquo In Women the State and

Welfare edited by Linda Gordon 9ndash35 Madison University of Wisconsin PressHall E T

1959 The Silent Language New York Anchor BooksHaney L

1996 ldquoHomeboys Babies and Men in Suits The State and the Reproduction of MaleDominancerdquo American Sociological Review 61 (5) 759ndash778

Hasenfeld Y1972 ldquoPeople Processing Organizations An Exchange Approachrdquo American Sociologi-cal Review 37 256ndash263

Hays S2003 Flat Broke with Children Women in the Age of Welfare Reform New York Oxford

University PressHochschild A

2001 The Time Bind New York Holt Jacobs J and K Gerson

2004 The Time Divide Cambridge MA Harvard University Press Joseph G and D Nugent eds

1994 Everyday Forms of State Formation Durham NC Duke University Press

Kafka F1998 [1946] The Trial New York Schocken BooksKorteweg A

2006 ldquoThe Construction of Gendered Citizenship at the Welfare Of1047297ce An Ethno-graphic Comparison of Welfare-to-Work Workshops in the United States and theNetherlandsrdquo Social Politics 13 (3) 313ndash340

Levine R1997 A Geography of Time New York Basic Books

Mann L1969 ldquoQueue Culture The Waiting Line as a Social Systemrdquo American Journal of Sociol-

ogy 75 340ndash354Marx K

1887 Capital vol1 New York New WorldMink G

1990 ldquoThe Lady and the Tramp Gender Race and the Origins of the American WelfareStaterdquo In Women the State and Welfare edited by Linda Gordon 99ndash122 MadisonUniversity of Wisconsin Press




Munn N1992 ldquoThe Cultural Anthropology of Time A Critical Essayrdquo Annual Review of Anthro-

pology 21 91ndash123

Nelson B1990 ldquoThe Origins of the Two-Channel Welfare State Workmenrsquos Compensations andMothersrsquo Aidrdquo In Women the State and Welfare edited by Linda Gordon 123ndash151Madison University of Wisconsin Press

OrsquoBrien E1995 ldquoWaitingrdquo In The Best American Essays edited by J Kincaid and R Atawan 170ndash

181 Boston Houghton Mif1047298inOrloff A

1999 ldquoMotherhood Work and Welfare in the United States Britain Canada and Aus-traliardquo In StateCulture State Formation after the Cultural Turn edited by GeorgeSteinmetz 321ndash354 Ithaca NY Cornell University Press

Ortner S2006 Anthropology and Social Theory Durham NC Duke University Press

Pateman C1988 ldquoThe Patriarchal Welfare Staterdquo In Democracy and the Welfare State edited by

A Gutmann 231ndash260 Princeton NJ Princeton University PressRabinow P

1984 Foucault A Reader New York PantheonRedko C R Rapp and R Carlson

2006 ldquoWaiting Time as a Barrier to Treatment Entry Perceptions of Substance Abus-ersrdquo Journal of Drug Issues 22 831ndash852

Roth J1963 Timetables Structuring the Passage of Time in Hospital Treatment and Other Careers

Indianapolis IN Bobbs-MerrillRoy B

1994 Some Trouble with Cows Making Sense of Social Con1047298ict Berkeley University ofCalifornia PressRoy D

1959 ldquoBanana Time Job Satisfaction and Informal Interactionrdquo Human Organization18 158ndash168

Schutz A1964 The Problem of Social Reality Collected Papers 1 The Hague Martinus Nijhoff

Schwartz B1974 ldquoWaiting Exchange and Power The Distribution of Time in Social Systemsrdquo

American Journal of Sociology 79 841ndash8701975 Queuing and Waiting Studies in the Social Organization of Access and Delay Chicago

University of Chicago Press

Schweizer H2008 On Waiting London RoutledgeScott J

1999 Seeing Like the State New Haven CT Yale University PressScott J and B Kerkvliet

1977 ldquoHow Traditional Rural Patrons Lose Legitimacy A Theory with Special Refer-ence to Southeast Asiardquo In Friends Followers and Factions A Reader in Political Cli-entelism edited by L Guasti C Landeacute S Schmidt and J Scott 439ndash458 BerkeleyUniversity of California Press

Sorokin P and R Merton1937 ldquoSocial Time A Methodological and Functional Analysisrdquo American Journal of

Sociology 42 615ndash629Tarrow S

1996 ldquoThe Peoplersquos Two Rhythms Charles Tilly and the Study of Contentious PoliticsrdquoComparative Studies in Society and History 38 586ndash600

Thompson E P1994 Customs in Common New York New Press




Tilly C2008 Credit and Blame Princeton NJ Princeton University Press

Wedeen L

1999 Ambiguities of Domination Chicago University of Chicago PressWillis P1977 Learning to Labor New York Columbia University Press

Young A2004 The Minds of Marginalized Black Men Princeton NJ Princeton University Press

Zerubavel E1979 Patterns of Time in Hospital Life Chicago University of Chicago Press



Latin American Research Review Vol 46 No 1 copy 2011 by the Latin American Studies Association

PAT I E N T S O F T H E S T AT E

An Ethnographic Account of Poor Peoplersquos Waiting

Javier AuyeroUniversity of Texas at Austin

Abstract Drawing on six months of ethnographic 1047297eldwork in the main welfare of- 1047297ce of the city of Buenos Aires this article dissects poor peoplersquos lived experiences ofwaiting The article examines the welfare of1047297ce as a site of intense sociability amidst

pervasive uncertainty Poor peoplersquos waiting experiences persuade the destitute ofthe need to be patient thus conveying the implicit state request to be compliant cli-ents An analysis of the sociocultural dynamics of waiting helps us understand how(and why) welfare clients become not citizens but patients of the state

INTRODUCTION

Waiting writes Pierre Bourdieu (2000) in Pascalian Meditations is one ofthe ways of experiencing the effects of power ldquoMaking people wait de-laying without destroying hope adjourning without totally disappoint-

ingrdquo are according to Bourdieu (2000 228) integral parts of the workingof domination Although the social sciences have thoroughly examinedlinks between power and time waiting (as both temporal region and anactivity with intricate relationships with the constitution and reproduc-tion of submission) remains with the exceptions noted herein ldquohardlymapped and badly documentedrdquo (Schweizer 2008 1) Understandably soattention to waiting and its (apparent) related inaction goes against thesocial sciencesrsquo preferred focus on individual and collective action onthe event as that ldquohistorical fact that leaves a unique and singular trace

one that marks history by its particular and inimitable consequencesrdquo(Dumoulins qtd in Tarrow 1996 587)Writing precisely about this absence Bourdieu (2000 228) asserts that

we need to ldquocatalogue and analyze all the behaviors associated with the

Special thanks to Shila Vilker Nadia Finck and Agustiacuten Burbano de Lara who workedas research assistants for this project Many thanks also to Matthew Desmond MeganComfort Rodrigo Hobert Loiumlc Wacquant Lauren Joseph and Christine Williams for theircritical comments on different versions of this article Previous versions of this article werepresented at the Lozano Long Conference at the University of Texas at Austin and at the

Instituto Gino Germani (University of Buenos Aires) The National Science FoundationAward SES-0739217 and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at theUniversity of Texas at Austin provided funding for this project
























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AUYERO - Patients of the State. an Ethnographic Account of Poor People’s Waiting

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