1st Edition

The Anthropology of Welfare

Edited By Iain Edgar, Andrew Russell Copyright 1998
    282 Pages
    by Routledge

    280 Pages
    by Routledge

    The Anthropology of Welfare provides an overview of what anthropology has to offer welfare studies and vice-versa.
    Case studies from anthropologists in the field, examine different branches of welfare and community care, for example:
    * Maternity services
    * Children with learning difficulties
    * Children's homes
    * Mothers' centres
    * People with HIV
    * Mental health centres
    * Housing
    * Care and provision for the elderly.
    Contributors focus on comparative welfare systems - examples are taken from urban and rural areas of the UK, USA, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, and New Zealand. In each case the theoretical and methodological appropriateness of social anthropology for the study of welfare, and the insights gained by bringing anthropology and welfare together are examined.
    The Anthropology of Welfare will be essential reading for those studying anthropology, social work and social policy and will be of interest to teachers, practitioners and researchers in applied social welfare fields.

    1 Research and practice in the anthropology of welfare 2 ‘You just get on with it’: questioning models of welfare dependency in a rural community 3 Concepts of community in changing health care: a study of change in midwifery practice 4 The child welfare debate in Portugal: a case study of a children’s home 5 ‘Equal, but different’? Welfare, gender ideology and a ‘mothers’ centre’ in southern Germany 6 The co-operation concept in a team of Swedish social workers: applying grid and group to studies of community care 7 Caring communities or effective networks? Community care and people with learning difficulties in South Wales 8 Staff models and practice: managing ‘trouble’ in a community-based programme for chronically mentally ill adults in the USA 9 A local anthropology of exclusion 10 Considering the culture of community care: anthropological accounts of the experiences of frontline carers, older people and a researcher 11 Treasures on Earth: housing assets, public policy and older people in New Zealand 12 Residents’ participation in the management of retirement housing in the UK 13 Using experiential research methods: the potential contribution of humanistic groupwork methods to anthropology and welfare research

    Biography

    Iain R. Edgar and Andrew Russell are both Lecturers in Anthropology at the University of Durham.