On August 17, FESA PI Knut Christian Myhre and FESA guest-researcher Douglas Holmes co-organized a panel entitled Renegotiating the Social Contract: Ethnographic Explorations of the Contemporary Welfare State at the biennial conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA).
The theme of the conference was Staying, Moving, Settling.
The panel aimed to explore ethnographically recent policy developments and practices, such as workfare programs, tax reforms, austerity policies, and basic income grants, that challenge the classic welfare state model and its social contract, where work formed the basis of membership and social belonging, and labour contributions enabled claims to benefits and were the central concern for government action and state administration.
The panel featured presentations by George Baca (Dong-A University), Lotta Björklund-Larsen (Lindköping University), Agniezka Pasieka (University of Vienna), Martin Fotta (Goethe Universität), and Knut Christian Myhre (University of Oslo). These concerned topics as diverse as Keynes and neoliberalism in South Korea, taxation and communication in Sweden, the far-right and welfare provisions in Italy, Bolsa Familia in recession Brazil, and the oil-fund and social commitments in Norway. Meanwhile, Douglas Holmes (SUNY Binghamton) served as discussant.