Care models in transition: public policy challenges in response to the pandemic crisis

Datum
23. Juli – 26. Juli 2024 

CfP Pan­el for EASA’s Online Pan­el „Care mod­els in tran­si­tion: pub­lic pol­i­cy chal­lenges in response to the pan­dem­ic crisis” 

Online Pan­el „Care mod­els in tran­si­tion: pub­lic pol­i­cy chal­lenges in response to the pan­dem­ic crisis”
EASA conference
Barcelona, July 23–26, 2024.

Please sub­mit your pro­pos­al here
Dead­line: 22 Jan­u­ary 2024.

Con­venors:
Car­los Chiri­nos (Rovi­ra i Vir­gili Uni­ver­si­ty, Spain)
Sil­via Bofill-Poch (Uni­ver­si­ty of Barcelona, Spain)
Antó­nia Pedroso de Lima (ISCTE-IUL CRIA, Portugal)

Short abstract:
The COVID-19 cri­sis has shown the struc­tur­al weak­ness­es of our care mod­els. This pan­el encour­ages con­tri­bu­tions to a crit­i­cal debate on changes in pub­lic care poli­cies in response to the pan­dem­ic cri­sis from an anthro­po­log­i­cal perspective.

Long Abstract:
The glob­al COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brought into focus the effects of a long-last­ing care cri­sis in Europe and beyond (Daly 2020). The COVID-19 cri­sis stretched our health and social pro­tec­tion sys­tems to the lim­it, exac­er­bat­ed already exist­ing social inequal­i­ties and showed the struc­tur­al weak­ness­es of our care mod­els. Fam­i­lies, and paid care work­ers, had to cope with sud­den dif­fi­cul­ties, some of which were extreme­ly com­plex to man­age. Some cit­i­zens’ move­ments react­ed and raised their voic­es for a fair­er and more sus­tain­able care mod­el. Insti­tu­tions also react­ed. The urgency of a change of mod­el became evi­dent. In 2022, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion approved the Euro­pean Care Strat­e­gy, which is already guid­ing dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ments’ pro­grammes to change the care mod­el. The Strat­e­gy states that this change is essen­tial and must be accom­pa­nied by sig­nif­i­cant reforms and pub­lic invest­ment. Accord­ing­ly, we are inter­est­ed in con­tri­bu­tions address­ing: a) pol­i­cy respons­es to the care cri­sis (or over­lap­ping crises: finan­cial, health, cli­mate, etc.); b) the ten­sions –risks and poten­tials– that some of the sug­gest­ed mea­sures entail, such as dein­sti­tu­tion­al­i­sa­tion, per­son-cen­tred care or the pub­lic-com­mu­ni­ty care mod­el; and c) the chal­lenges involved in mov­ing towards more com­pre­hen­sive mod­els of care, in terms of artic­u­la­tion between dif­fer­ent agents of care, and in terms of pol­i­cy artic­u­la­tion (care, health and hous­ing poli­cies, among oth­ers). All of this will be based on empir­i­cal research, which will enable the debate to be ground­ed and com­pared. This pan­el will con­tribute toward open­ing a crit­i­cal debate on changes in pub­lic poli­cies on care in the com­ing years from an anthro­po­log­i­cal perspective.