The Anthropology of Welfare

"The Anthropology of Welfare" explores how theoretical concepts of anthropology can be applied and used in issues of welfare and community care. It examines the relationship between the cared for, their carers and the social, cultural and political-economic milieu in which their interactions take place. The international contributors, whose work is based in both rural and urban areas, question definitions of "community" and the institutional interfaces involved--between social services and health services and primary and secondary health care.

1 Research and practice in the anthropology of welfare 2 'You just get on with it': questioning models of welfare dependency in a rural community 3 Concepts of community in changing health care: a study of change in midwifery practice 4 The child welfare debate in Portugal: a case study of a children's home 5 'Equal, but different'? Welfare, gender ideology and a 'mothers' centre' in southern Germany 6 The co-operation concept in a team of Swedish social workers: applying grid and group to studies of community care 7 Caring communities or effective networks? Community care and people with learning difficulties in South Wales 8 Staff models and practice: managing 'trouble' in a community-based programme for chronically mentally ill adults in the USA 9 A local anthropology of exclusion 10 Considering the culture of community care: anthropological accounts of the experiences of frontline carers, older people and a researcher 11 Treasures on Earth: housing assets, public policy and older people in New Zealand 12 Residents' participation in the management of retirement housing in the UK 13 Using experiential research methods: the potential contribution of humanistic groupwork methods to anthropology and welfare research