The Anthropology of Welfare provides an overview of what anthropology has to offer welfare studies and vice-versa. Case studies from anthropologists in the field, examine different branches of welfare and community care, for example: * Maternity services * Children with learning difficulties * Children's homes * Mothers' centres * People with HIV * Mental health centres * Housing * Care and provision for the elderly. Contributors focus on comparative welfare systems - examples are taken from urban and rural areas of the UK, USA, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, and New Zealand. In each case the theoretical and methodological appropriateness of social anthropology for the study of welfare, and the insights gained by bringing anthropology and welfare together are examined. The Anthropology of Welfare will be essential reading for those studying anthropology, social work and social policy and will be of interest to teachers, practitioners and researchers in applied social welfare fields.
Author(s): Iain Edgar, Andrew Russell
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 1998
Language: English
Pages: 288
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
Notes on contributors......Page 8
Acknowledgements......Page 12
Research and practice in the anthropology of welfare......Page 14
'You just get on with it': questioning models of welfare dependency in a rural community......Page 29
Concepts of community in changing health care: a study of change in midwifery practice......Page 46
The child welfare debate in Portugal: a case study of a children's home......Page 70
'Equal, but different'? Welfare, gender ideology and a 'mothers' centre' in southern Germany......Page 86
The co-operation concept in a team of Swedish social workers: applying grid and group to studies of community care......Page 110
Caring communities or effective networks? Community care and people with learning difficulties in South Wales......Page 133
Staff models and practice: managing 'trouble' in a community-based programme for chronically mentally ill adults in the USA......Page 150
A local anthropology of exclusion......Page 174
Considering the culture of community care: anthropological accounts of the experiences of frontline carers, older people and a researcher......Page 196
Treasures on Earth: housing assets, public policy and older people in New Zealand......Page 222
Residents' participation in the management of retirement housing in the UK......Page 241
Using experiential research methods: the potential contribution of humanistic groupwork methods to anthropology and welfare research......Page 259
Index......Page 275
