Paper short abstract:

This paper considers spaces of welfare, both figurative and literal. The work of outreach – initiatory and street-level welfare provision – is considered against the backdrop of urban regeneration in central Cardiff, the capital city of Wales.

Paper long abstract:

This paper considers spaces of welfare, both figurative and literal. The work of outreach – initiatory and street-level welfare provision – is considered against the backdrop of urban regeneration in central Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. Outreach workers instigate encounters with others in presumed need so as to negotiate relationships of support and incorporation; these encounters and relationships take shape as a sequence of exchanges in which services are offered and accepted, assistance and consent traded. As such – as encounter and exchange – outreach work is a coming across. To come across is also to move over a threshold or boundary. This idea of outreach work as entailing a crossing of borders gives the paper its particular focus.

Outreach welfare work in central Cardiff is described and discussed as a traversing of both borders – of inequality and belonging – and material spaces in the city centre. These borders and spaces are shown to constitute both the terrain of negotiation between workers and (potential) clients and a significant stake in that negotiation.