Identity work and client resistance underneath the canopy of active employment policy

In the Danish employment system social workers have the important institutional task of trying to establish a labour market perspective for each cash benefit recipient, even when the client has other problems in addition to unemployment. The client's 'capacity for work' must be documented and described. In this article we examine the dilemmas that occur in the interaction between clients and social workers. We show how clients try to evade the demands of labour market related identities in their negotiations with social workers. Our analysis focuses on two cases, selected from a vast qualitative material, that represent cases in which the client's dissatisfaction becomes apparent. The results indicate that clients are active participants who resist, protest against and sometimes even avoid the identities offered by the employment system.