Knowing Rights

This text explores how identity informs the judgements of State workers, as normative orientations coincide with identities and authority. At all levels, legal ordering becomes entangled with moral orientations and the micropolitics of identification, as workers interact with one another and their clients. The result is neither law nor order, but a fragile cultural politics of workers acting on citizens as they act out their identities. Using case studies in the field, the book conducts an exploration of the State, whilst holding onto the strong notions of identity, power and normative orientation. It introduces the notion of "rights" by arguing that workers assert identity and power as they make judgements about who gets what from the State.