How are European welfare futures remade in this critical moment?
'Prototyping Welfare in Europe: Experiments in State and Society’ examines how welfare is reimagined in the face of growing precarity and spiraling needs in four European cities. Who steps up when established welfare actors are unable to provide answers to human emergencies? And what welfare futures are made in programs that claim to do welfare differently?
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Imagining Welfare State Futures - Seminar by Prof. John Clarke on 21 april
Prof. Clarke explores how welfare states are shaped by competing social imaginaries rather than fixed institutional designs. He argues that this perspective challenges the narrow empiricism that has long dominated welfare state research. The seminar takes place on the 21st of april and is part of the Welfare Futures Seminar Series.
Read moreWelfare Reform by Stealth? How Social Entrepreneurs in Germany and Greece Envision the Future of Welfare by Dimitri Soudias
In the next Welfare Future Seminar, Dr. Dimitri Soudias (Ghent University) will talk about Welfare Reform by Stealth? How Social Entrepreneurs in Germany and Greece Envision the Future of Welfare. This seminar takes place on the 10th of March in Amsterdam.
Read moreWelfare future seminar by Tessa Bonduelle: The values of volunteering: Race, class, and the politics of unwaged labour in London-based food aid
In the next Welfare Future Seminar, Tessa Bonduelle will talk about The values of volunteering: Race, class, and the politics of unwaged labour in London-based food aid. This seminar takes place on the 17th of February in Amsterdam.
Read more‘Being there for our neighbours’. Volunteering during the pandemic and the depoliticization of volunteer support networks in England.
On 11 December, Dr. Rosie Read (Bournemouth University) will give a talk entitled ‘Being there for our neighbours’: Volunteering during the pandemic and the depoliticization of volunteer support networks in England.
Read moreShifting States: EASA Anthropologies of the State Network Conference
From 22 to 24 October 2025, the EASA Network on Anthropologies of the State takes place at the UvA. The conference Shifting States will convene to examine shifting forms of state power and governance amid ongoing global crises. The conference explores how conflicts, migration restrictions, economic inequality, and technological developments such as artificial intelligence generate new tensions between citizens and state institutions. The keynote speaker is Alice von Bieberstein.
Read moreIntermediate bodies: mothers, neighbourhoods and the elastic welfare state in France
On 4 November Alice Daquin will be the next speaker for the Welfare Futures Seminar Series. In her talk Intermediate Bodies: Mothers, Neighbourhoods and the Elastic Welfare State in France she will explore how everyday actors such as mothers and local communities interact with and reshape state welfare structures, revealing the flexible, often invisible layers through which care, responsibility, and governance are negotiated in contemporary France.
Read morePolyphonic Welfare: Challenging Hierarches in a Norwegian Social Entrepreneurship Incubator
Janet Connor's lecture "Polyphonic Welfare" challenges hierarches in a Norwegian social entrepreneurship incubator. This lecture is part of the Welfare Futures Seminar series and takes place on October 7, 2025.
Read moreAnouk de Koning delivers her inaugural lecture on the ‘Intimate State’
On June 6, 2025, anthropologist Anouk de Koning delivered her inaugural lecture at the University of Amsterdam, titled The Intimate State: Remaking Political Landscapes in the Netherlands. In her lecture, she explored how the Dutch welfare state has, since 2015, been transformed into an "intimate state"—a seemingly human, close, and participatory government that carries out its social responsibilities through neighborhood teams and collaborations with citizens.
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