Not paper people: application forms as ethical stories at the wellbeing garden

This paper reports on ethnographic observations about the filling in, and handling, of application forms for a garden-based wellbeing program. It describes the ethical challenges involved in determining the eligibility of applicants, particularly where application forms aren't completed clearly or don't present cases indicative of potential health benefit. The paper utilises a narrative approach to the anthropology of ethics to interpret application forms as gambits in self-narratives about worth and need. These narratives are diverse, sometimes unclear, and sometimes do not fit easily with institutional remits. As such, the paper contributes to understandings of the infrastructures required for inclusive and accessible programs supporting contexts of health with three claims: (1) That potential beneficiaries present to such services in ways that vary in communicative form, technical capacity, and ethical orientation, and that application forms do not easily accommodate this breadth. (2) That participants may not present to services in terms of their health need, or in terms relevant to health inequality evaluation, while services, funders, and referrers may require those sorts of information. (3) That to buffer the exclusionary potential of application processes, administrative work is ethical work that must be well resourced and supported.