Imagining and practising citizenship in austere times: the work of Citizens Advice

Abstract

This article explores the significance of citizenship for those working in Citizens Advice, a network of voluntary organisations in the UK that exists to provide peer-to-peer advice and support to those facing problems. Drawing on a recent research study, the article considers the ways in which the ‘citizen in citizens advice’ is imagined and translated into practice. Despite current political and policy moves to shrink citizenship (in terms of eligibility, access and substance), the ‘citizen in citizens advice’ is regularly thought about in expansive ways that draw on other imaginaries of citizenship. We suggest that these everyday discursive practices of citizenship are important both in analytic terms and in reinvigorating a political discussion otherwise focused upon restriction and exclusion.

Keywords:

• Citizenship
• advice
• dialogism
• discursive practice
• Austerity

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the generous and helpful comments from the anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1. The large other organisation of note is Citizens UK, formed in 1996 with a remit to support and bring together community organisations.

2. Following Rhys Jones, we refer to the combination of the central organisation and the member bureaux as the ‘CAB Service’.

3. In 2015, following a consultation of member bureaux, it was decided that the term ‘bureau’ be dropped from the title of local organisations. We have retained the term in this text because it remained in regular usage during our fieldwork.

4. This funding is provided by a grant from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for the CAB Service as a whole and Local Government grants for individual bureaux. The remainder of bureau funding is drawn from private funders such as charities and utility providers.

5. All of the names attached to fieldwork extracts in the paper are pseudonyms.

6. The Peckham Pioneer Health Centre was opened in 1935 as an architectural, medical and social innovation. See, for example, http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/heritage/peckham-health-centre.