At the Limits of Welfare: Waiting, Stigma, and the Quiet Labor of Care

Abstract

This thesis is based on six weeks of ethnographic research conducted with an NGO in Tamil Nadu, India during the summer of 2024. During my fieldwork, I conducted semi-structured interviews with beneficiaries and participant-observation with NGO staffers to learn more about how the NGO was facilitating health access. Drawing from this material, I question why welfare services are still not reaching marginalized communities despite the abundance of welfare schemes in Tamil Nadu. I point to narratives of deservingness stemming from dominant political imaginaries that construct beneficiaries as lazy and stigmatize welfare. I highlight how these narratives, the hidden costs of accessing welfare, and historical dehumanization serve as barriers to availing of free schemes. I then examine waiting as an obstacle to care. Finally, I look at the role of care and affective labor within the NGO in facilitating access by addressing feelings of misrecognition and maintaining initiatives in the face of scarcity.