Waiting as sociality–relational waithood in Norwegian activation

Abstract

In research on waiting and unemployment, waiting tends to be described as an asymmetrical power relation between those who wait and those who impose waiting within institutional contexts. This paper applies the concepts ‘waiting for’ and ‘waiting on’ to unravel waiting as a specific form of sociality and presence in an employment support context in Norway. Drawing on qualitative interviews with frontline staff and young participants in in-house activity centres, we find that waiting takes different forms; the counsellors not only wait for the participants to comply with the activity requirements, they also wait on them, to interact. Similarly, the young participants wait for ‘something to happen’, like a job opportunity, but they also wait on staff in the centres. Hence, both actors experience waiting in relation to rules, employment etc., but also as subjects with agency. We argue that activation can involve waiting as a form of sociality and presence, a dimension that receives scant attention in the literature on waiting and power.