Asian women beyond resilience: negotiating services in austere times

To date, much of the policy discourse on the wellbeing of British Asian women has been framed either around structural inequalities and barriers to state services and healthcare or, within a growing framework around the proactivity of individuals. This second framework emphasises agency in improving lives and is often posited alongside discourses of wellbeing and resilience: constructing an optimistic narrative of 'bouncing back' in the face of economic and social adversity. Growing pressure on third-sector and community organisations to act as a source of community resilience exists alongside seismic changes in the organisation and delivery of service-provision at a local level, with an increasing dependence on charities and religious organisations to deliver previously state-delivered services. There is a need for further exploration of the ramifications of third-sector and voluntary organisations becoming both empowered and responsibilised for the welfare and wellbeing of local citizens. This research outlines current academic literature into the devolution of service provision in an era of austerity, as well as exploring potential research methods for exploring how South Asian women, living in inner-city Birmingham, navigate and use these services. Through qualitative approaches, this research seeks a nuanced understanding of the impact of austerity and devolved services on users, and an exploration of the ways in which ethnicity and gender both intersect with, and are inherently bound up in, austerity politics.