The Politics of Community Services: Immigrant Women, Class and State. 2nd ed.

Shelley Butler is a PhD candidate in anthropology at York University
studying cultural politics at the University of Cape Town in South
Africa.

This careful and concise study of the internal transformation of a
community employment agency for immigrant women is based on research
conducted in the 1980s.

As the book documents, when a social service agency committed to
advocacy is required by its federal funders to become increasingly
hierarchical, bureaucratic, and accountable to the state, various
tensions arise. For instance, employment counselors are increasingly
torn between serving their clients and completing paperwork. As
pressures increase, they begin to relate to both employers and immigrant
women as their clients, which marks a significant shift from their
original advocacy position. In describing this process, Ng offers a
nuanced analysis of the ways in which the state contains community
activism. At the same time, she clearly articulates the constraints and
dilemmas experienced by federally funded community social services.

Unfortunately, this second edition of The Politics of Community
Services neglects to disclose the fate of the employment agency studied
by Ng in the 1980s. However, at a time when restructuring of social
programs and the welfare state is becoming an everyday concern, the book
continues to be relevant. It will be of interest to students of social
work, community work, women’s studies, and sociology, as well as to
people involved with community employment agencies.