ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides analysis of the symbolic boundary work and symbolic resources mobilised in welfare work, and of the sociation processes and the societal forms making and remaking society across professional identities in welfare work. It examines how the processes of othering and making different, and differentiating between ethnic groups, shape the image of what welfare work can do. The book is concerned with the way welfare workers, in addressing immigrants and refugees, gain energy from the Other’s alleged problem, weakness or lack. It explores the area of welfare work with immigrants and refugees in the Nordic and social democratic welfare state of Denmark. The book explains how the symbolic resources and the societal forms assist in making and remaking society and help modern welfare go on being itself in a global context.
