Statecrafting on the Fringes: Studies of Welfare Work Addressing the Other

Statecrafting on the Fringes draws critical attention to welfare practices addressing the other: dislocated people within the post-1945 welfare state. The book concerns educational work, social work, and healthcare work addressing Greenlanders, the German minority, problem children, as well as immigrants and refugees. Through historical and sociological studies of welfare work understood as statecrafting practices, which are strengthened by the presence of the other within the Danish welfare nation-state, the authors present critical analyses of the humanitarian imperialism and the civilizing missions addressing the other.

The book thus challenges the idealization of the Nordic welfare state model and characterizes Danish welfare universalism as intertwined with national integrationism and understandings of cultural superiority. At its core, Statecrafting on the Fringes helps us understand the inner workings of a much-celebrated welfare nation-state, what its implications are in an era of globalization and migration, and how we could think about it differently.

Trine Øland is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen. Christian Ydesen is associate professor at Aalborg University in Denmark. Marta Padovan-Özdemir is assistant professor at VIA University College in Denmark. Bolette Moldenhawer is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen.