Welfare Reform by Stealth? How Social Entrepreneurs in Germany and Greece Envision the Future of Welfare by Dimitri Soudias

In recent years, social entrepreneurs have been hailed by policymakers as visionary actors capable of responding to intersecting crises—from welfare retrenchment and health crises to ecological breakdown—by delivering social needs provision while fostering more inclusive and sustainable forms of economic activity. Yet despite the prominence attributed to them, we know relatively little about how social entrepreneurs themselves envision the future of welfare. 

Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation in Athens and Berlin, this talk Dr. Dimitri Soudias examines the meaning-making practices through which social entrepreneurs interpret, justify, and reimagine welfare and social needs provision. Across these accounts, social entrepreneurship emerges as a site in which the imaginary and moral economy of welfare are subtly reordered—particularly in how distinctions between the social and the economic, public provision and private initiative, and deservingness are negotiated. While rights and state-facilitated redistribution remain present, they are increasingly backgrounded in favor of an imaginary that normalizes “socially useful” economic activity as the privileged basis of welfare provision. At the same time, enterprises are subtly imagined as sites that can mitigate social risks for their members from within, thereby potentially reducing reliance on the welfare system in the first place. 

To capture these largely opaque shifts in how welfare is understood and practiced, this talks introduces the notion of “welfare reform by stealth”, whereby normative expectations surrounding social needs provision change without the need for overt policy reform. Soudias suggests that this reordering reshapes which actors are recognized as legitimate for the provision of welfare, how welfare is oriented toward the future, and what welfare itself is understood to be. 

Practical information

What        
Dimitri Soudias, Welfare Reform by Stealth? How Social Entrepreneurs in Germany and Greece Envision the Future of Welfare.

When       
10 March, 15.30-17.00, followed by drinks at CREA Café. 

Where      
REC B5.12, Common Room Anthropology (Roeterseiland, B-building, 5th floor) 
If you are not able to join in person, you can also follow the talk and discussion via the live stream.

Welfare Futures Seminar Upcoming Events
21 April 2026: John Clarke
12 May 2026: Emil Wolff

Welfare Futures seminar series

The Welfare Futures seminar series is hosted by the Prototyping Welfare and Crafting Resilience projects, embedded in the Anthropology department of the University of Amsterdam. With talks every 4 weeks, it seeks to create a lively space for debate and bring together an interdisciplinary ethnographic community engaged in thinking about transforming welfare landscapes in Europe and beyond.