Welfare ruination, debris and Europeans’ make-shift practices: A research agenda

Abstract

The mainstream literature on welfare retrenchment, austerity and post-welfare states proposes that since the mid 1970s, welfare states are in a state of ‘permanent austerity’. To offer an alternative to such stories of loss and their problematic nostalgic retelling of recent European history, leaving out its imperial histories, this article proposes to look instead at welfare as the object of ruination. This approach builds on literatures that focus on the experience of austerity and institutional violence to take a step further towards everyday responsive practices. Building on the work of Ann Laura Stoler, studying ruination and debris opens up the possibility to look at (1) the long durée of the colonial heritage of welfare, (2) ruination as an active and violent process and (3) welfare debris and how European dwellers use it and live in it. For Europeans, living amidst ruins and in a time of ruination, then, the question is: how can they build a life with the welfare debris that they are left with? Who is able to navigate the ruins and who is not? For researchers, this perspective can inform a new research agenda: a redirection of attention from welfare as ‘organized provision’ to, instead, how people organize the provisional, improvising with the rubble that remains.