Dag van de antropologie 2024

After decades of neoliberal erosion, across Europe, once solid welfare states are coming apart at the seams. It has now become increasingly clear that we are living and working in a grim moment in which welfare actors are unable to live up to promises of care and welfare in the face of deep social inequalities, precarity and distrust. These failing welfare states raise existential questions for many people, and have recently led to a phenomenal political success of right wing populism, conspiracy theories, and existential fears.
New anthropological research explores the limits of the welfare state, asking how welfare actors within and beyond the state prototype welfare arrangements of the future. What happens when welfare state promises come up against their limits, both in terms of the basic necessities it can no longer provide (housing, income, food) and in terms of the multiple exclusions it enacts among those in need, including sans papiers? How are old social contracts reimagined in this context?
This year’s anthropology day is organized in collaboration with the Crafting Resilience and Prototyping Welfare projects, two recently awarded research projects carried out by anthropologists from Leiden University. We invite you to join conversations about the current state and futures of welfare in and beyond Europe. The day features a keynote that examines how welfare is reimagined across Europe as “things fall apart”, panels with current research on welfare policies and practices, and a roundtable about welfare state innovations across the world.