From 2017 to 2019, Shields conducted interviews with seven Black Londoners about their experience of the British welfare state. While opposed to the neoliberal defunding and privatisation of the welfare state, the interviews marked out space for Black people’s complaint and critiques of what the state describes as care, specifically Black people surviving on low incomes or experiencing poverty.
In 2021, the interview transcripts were published by Triple Canopy with an introduction by Shields that analysed the co-development of the modern welfare state and measures to expel or instrumentalise Black peoples.