First French-Australian Online Conference Series on Surveillance and the Humanities

Surveillance is central to the functioning of 21st century capitalism and modern social welfare. It has often been displayed as necessarily intrusive and threatening. The present research builds on the suggestions that an articulate discussion about humanities could be fruitful in producing a more complex picture and that literary works in particular could flesh out operative concepts in studies of surveillance. In a world dramatically changed in the last few months, surveillance has become e..

Cashless Welfare Transfers for ‘Vulnerable’ Welfare Recipients: Law, Ethics and Vulnerability

This article aims to contribute to literature on the conceptualisation of ‘vulnerability’ and its use by neo-liberal welfare regimes to demean, stigmatize and responsibilize welfare recipients. Several conceptions of ‘vulnerability’ will be explored and utilised in the context of welfare reforms that purport to regulate social security recipients as highly risky ‘vulnerable’ subjects. However, as this article will make clear, ‘vulnerability’ is a somewhat slippery concept and one susceptible to abuse by powerful interests intent on increasing coercive surveillance, discipline and disentitlement for those designated as ‘vulnerable’. Legislation enacted ostensibly to address the ‘vulnerability’ of welfare recipients can foster intensive regulation and it must be asked who benefits most from such arrangements and the rhetoric that supports them.Full Tex