Call for papers European Journal of Social Work -Special Issue explore experiences and practices of waiting in relation to the welfare state
Call for papers European Journal of Social Work -Special Issue explore experiences and practices of waiting in relation to the welfare state!
Analyses of waiting can offer deeper knowledge regarding forms of domination and subordination within the welfare system. Waiting for asylum, social support, medical treatment are part of the categorization, unequal experiences that have consequences for the individual and at the same time are part of societal structures.
It can be argued that issues of waiting are omnipresent in social work. It is part of the interaction between the individual and the system. In relation to the individual, it forms the structures of power and control.
There is a growing body of literature on waiting as different forms of power and control, as well as part of experiences in everyday life. For example, in relation to migration and asylum systems (Jacobsen, Karlsen & Khosravi, 2020); waiting in relation to resistance (Sørensen, Heikkinen, & Alfredsson-Olsson, 2019); poverty, vulnerability and practices of waiting in relation to power (Auyero, 2012) and just the multitude of meanings in different practices of waiting (Bastian & Hassan, 2019). This themed issue aims to contribute theoretically and empirically to how waiting forms the conditions of individuals’ interactions with the welfare state, social and economic mobility and access to rights.
At the centre of these discussions are the relations between temporalities and categorizations. Categories such as gender, race, functionality and class shape the experience of waiting, and stand in direct relation to issues of precariousness and grievability. Technological developments such as digitalization, organization modes in the welfare state as well as New Public Management can offer new forms of domination through temporality.
By illuminating different areas where social work is practiced though the lens of waiting, this issue will offer an important contribution to deepening our knowledge of the temporality of waiting in and for the welfare state.
We are especially interested in articles that focus on the following themes:
- Waiting, labour and precarization
- Waiting in the migration complex
- Waiting and access to social and economic rights
- Waiting in health care and illness
- Waiting and processes of family building
- Waiting as a tool of penalty such as imprisonment and administrative exclusion