ABSTRACT
The stock story of compassion is told from welfare workers’ self-proclaimed moral high ground compelling them professionally, emotionally and morally to help. The chapter displays the activation of the stock story in three ways. First, by way of confirming suffering, welfare workers propound their superior capabilities to observe, confirm and critique human suffering. Second, by way of rescuing, welfare workers act on the confirmed suffering of refugees as the courageous saviours they consider themselves to be. However, rescuing comes with a price. Hence, there should be limits to what the welfare worker must endure. Third, by way of reconstructing, welfare workers produce a reality in which oppression and conflicts are deemed incomprehensible, even childish. Although they perceive refugees to be a product of such barbaric ignorance, Danish welfare workers extend their compassion and consider the refugees susceptible to welfare civilisation aided by welfare workers’ superior technical and cultural mastery. Finally, the chapter recollects the stock story as a matter of uneven reciprocity, which is based on a racialised exchange rate that clearly grants the welfare workers moral and professional superiority. This leaves the refugees as subordinated people who cannot help, only receive help on the condition that they express gratitude.
