The course equips students with the analytical tools necessary to explore, question, and reimagine the social and cultural structures that underpin contemporary complex welfare states and their institutions. In this course, we understand these institutions theoretically as the arrangements that provide welfare, care and safety for the members of society. The lens of critical vulnerability theory is used in dialogue with other relevant theoretical and methodological approaches.

Students will explore professional practices and social institutions as well as the role of research and researchers through critical use of critical vulnerability theory in dialogue with other relevant theoretical and methodological approaches. Its starting point is that vulnerability is a universal, constant and inevitable aspect of life and societies - including their welfare and care institutions. The theory offers a normative vantage point from which to analyze how societies, through their institutions, solve social problems, foster equality and well-being or, in contrast, produce and reproduce inequalities and harms.

Critical vulnerability theory distinguishes itself from contested and often problematic understandings of vulnerability that can be stigmatizing, patronizing and may even lead to increased control and harmful interventions for populations that are defined as ‘vulnerable’.

The course will rely on a self-reflective approach, which also addresses researchers and professionals as vulnerable subjects. The course will provide an in-depth exploration of various institutional and professional contexts such as child protection, social work, family, church and diaconal institutions, prison, nursing and elderly care, migration, disability, substance abuse - and academia. The course is relevant to participants with different disciplinary backgrounds, research topics, and theoretical and methodological orientations.

Course description

Critical Perspectives on Welfare and Care Institutions

PHD-DVP 954