The Moral Economy of Welfare: Bulgarian Roma Migrants Reclaiming Social Citizenship through Fraud

This paper explores the constitution of a moral economy of welfare through acts of benefit fraud. The structural conditions of contemporary labour, citizenship and migration regimes in Europe exclude large shares of workers from access to social citizenship and place them in a position of undeserving trespassers of the social contract. Drawing on the case of Bulgarian Roma engaged in precarious labour and short-term intensive mobility between Bulgaria and the Netherlands, I show how labour conditions in both countries and the structures of the welfare regimes effectively exclude them from access to social citizenship and confine them to the realms of informal work, thus putting them in a position of differential inclusion. The benefit fraud in this context has multiple interpretations-ranging from crime through a survival strategy to a claim to social justice. By mobilizing the idea of the moral economy of welfare, I seek to explain how migrants justify their actions not as a transgression, but as a claim to social citizenship and a critique of an unjust social and economic order. In a moral economy of welfare, the migrants see themselves as deserving state support both by virtue of being citizens and of being good workers. Being excluded from proper welfare support is interpreted as a failure of both states. In this context, the fraud is framed in moral terms as an act of citizenship aiming to restore justice.

Automated summary

This paper explores the formation of a moral economy of welfare through acts of benefit fraud. The structural conditions of labor, citizenship, and migration regimes in contemporary Europe exclude many workers from obtaining social citizenship, positioning them as undeserving of the social contract. Through the case study of Bulgarian Roma engaged in precarious labor and short-term mobility between Bulgaria and the Netherlands, the author demonstrates how both labor conditions and welfare regimes effectively prevent their access to social citizenship, confining them to the informal labor sector and creating a situation of differential inclusion. The interpretation of benefit fraud in this context varies, from perceiving it as a crime or a survival strategy to a claim for social justice. By employing the concept of a moral economy of welfare, the author explains how migrants justify their actions not as transgressions, but as a demand for social citizenship and a critique of an unjust social and economic order. Within this moral economy of welfare, migrants see themselves as deserving state support based on their citizenship and their contribution as good workers. The exclusion from proper welfare support is seen as a failure of both states. In this context, benefit fraud is framed as an act of citizenship aimed at restoring justice.