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In this article, I describe a three-week analysis of newspaper articles from three major New Zealand newspapers relating to a statement made by New Zealand politician and Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei. Using a "figurative methodology" I argue that the emotionally-charged language used by the media to describe Turei during this period linked her to the affective figure of the welfare mother and, in the process, constituted her as deceitful, lazy and unfit to hold political office. I consider the welfare discourse featuring in articles that not only portrayed Turei negatively but also those that appeared to present Turei in a neutral or positive way. My interest is a consideration of the negative emotion implicit within such rhetoric that works to weaken sympathy for women dependent upon the state for support. I argue that the media reliance upon this language works to constitute welfare mothers in a specific and limiting way, and ultimately led to the end of Metiria Turei's political career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I draw from recent writing in relation to 'affect' to examine the affective economy of welfare: how affect circulates and attaches to individuals in ways that can be both beneficial and detrimental. This article is based on my doctoral research with lone mothers receiving Sole Parent Support, a welfare benefit paid in Aotearoa/New Zealand to single parents with one or more dependent children aged 14 years or younger. Utilising Sara Ahmed's (2014) metaphor of an affective economy, I consider what has value within the context of welfare. The concept of value here relates to both the specific notion of economic exchange and the more 'slippery' interpretation of what matters to people (Skeggs, 2011). Both understandings of the term have purchase for this discussion. Welfare provision in Aotearoa/New Zealand is, first and foremost, an economic exchange: a process whereby financial support is provided to enable a person to meet their most basic needs. The receipt of welfare is inherently connected, however, to social worth. In being dependent upon welfare a person's value becomes diminished. In this article, I consider the ways in which research participants negotiated value in the welfare setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I consider humour and laughter as a response to welfare practices, specifically in a New Zealand context. Analysing data from focus group interviews with 64 New Zealand lone mothers receiving welfare, I consider the laughter that accompanied accounts of being badly treated by welfare staff and frustrated by administrative practices surrounding the pursuit of financial assistance. My analysis focuses on the "affective practices" (Wetherell, 2012, p.12) of focus group participants as they spoke about accessing their welfare entitlements. Notions of movement and transformation are integral to the analysis, which considers how laughter moved the women and moved between them, creating a sense of group cohesion. I propose that laughing about difficult situations in relation to welfare receipt offered participants a way of responding to their experiences and, ultimately, a new way of feeling about these encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]