Towards new alternatives in social care: Transitions in the domestic, institutional and community care scenarios

Datum
14. Juli – 18. Juli 2025 

CfP for Pan­el at 9th APA, Viana do Caste­lo (Por­tu­gal)

CfP for pan­el on the top­ic „Towards new alter­na­tives in social care: Tran­si­tions in the domes­tic, insti­tu­tion­al and com­mu­ni­ty care scenarios”
9th APA – Asso­ci­ação Por­tugue­sa de Antropologia
Viana do Caste­lo (Por­tu­gal)
14–18 July, 2025

Dead­line 13 Jan­u­ary 2025: https://apa2025.eventqualia.net/pt/inicio/painéis/chamada-comunicações/
We invite sub­mis­sions of papers in both Span­ish and Eng­lish that pro­vide new insights on this topic.

Abstract:
Care prac­tices have sig­nif­i­cant rela­tions to people’s exis­tence and social repro­duc­tion. Care­giv­ing involves a com­plex inter­ac­tion between stake­hold­ers in var­i­ous sce­nar­ios (domes­tic, insti­tu­tion­al, and com­mu­ni­ty-based). Indeed, care is pro­vid­ed through a chang­ing con­stel­la­tion of resources across fam­i­lies, the State, the mar­ket and civ­il soci­ety, all of which com­prise the insti­tu­tion­al struc­ture of social care. Sim­i­lar­ly, care is struc­tured not only by gen­der but also by age, class, and ethnic/national ori­gin. The tra­di­tion­al care options have been between domes­tic care and res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties. Insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion in a res­i­den­tial care home is an option that is usu­al­ly reserved for wors­en­ing sit­u­a­tions of depen­dence. Age­ing in one’s own home is an aspi­ra­tion, but this often takes place in hous­ing and neigh­bor­hoods that are not adapt­ed to the needs of the age­ing, accel­er­at­ing their vul­ner­a­ble process­es. In addi­tion, ter­ri­to­r­i­al dis­par­i­ties (urban-rur­al areas) also account for inequal­i­ties in the access of care.
Our pan­el is ori­ent­ed towards iden­ti­fy­ing the ele­ments that can give rise to alter­na­tive for­mu­las for social care, which make it pos­si­ble to shift the cen­tral role played by fam­i­lies and women, favor­ing the dig­ni­fi­ca­tion of paid and unpaid care. To under­stand the expe­ri­ences in new care envi­ron­ments that try to fos­ter new forms of artic­u­la­tion between social agents and their care sur­round­ings (cohous­ing, care ecosys­tems, com­mu­ni­ties, etc.). We are inter­est­ed in con­tri­bu­tions that, based on ethno­graph­ic work and the­o­ret­i­cal reflec­tion, ana­lyze inno­v­a­tive for­mu­las in the artic­u­la­tion of long-term care providers, iden­ti­fy­ing their scope and lim­i­ta­tions when sub­vert­ing ter­ri­to­r­i­al, social and gen­der inequalities.