“Realistic” social work: How not-for-profit “operators” temper expectations of the French State

To manage the “refugee crisis,” the French state outsourced the support of asylum seekers and refugees to French not-for-profit organizations. Outsourcing subjects these organizations to efficiency and austerity objectives, constraining the work of their employees and undermining the ideal of human and relational social work. This article analyzes the social work practices developed by not-forprofit employees in emergency shelters and resettlement programs. Severely limited in their ability to humanize state operations, these employees undertake “realistic” social work. They shape the “ordinary relationship” (Spire, 2016) that asylum seekers and refugees have with the state by socializing them to a form of resignation in the face of degraded public services.