Projects / Programmes
Adriatic Welfare States. Social Politics in a Transnational Borderland from the mid-19th until the 21st Century.
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.01.00 |
Humanities |
Historiography |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H250 |
Humanities |
Contemporary history (since 1914) |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.01 |
Humanities |
History and Archaeology |
Welfare State, social politics, borderlands, history, northern Adriatic, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Researchers (12)
Organisations (1)
Abstract
The project Adriatic Welfare States. Social Politics in a Transnational Borderland from the mid-19th until the 21st Century builds upon a set of questions about social provision and social rights that are central to present-day debates in (and about) Europe. It seeks to answer these questions by analysing local social mobilizations in the highly mixed northern Adriatic borderland. We will do this by examining similarities and differences between States that have shaped the region's history (Habsburg monarchy, Kingdom of Italy in Fascist times, Nazi Germany, Anglo-American military administration, Socialist Yugoslavia, Cold War Italy and independent Slovenia) while tracing the circulation of ideas, people and practices. The focus on overlapping, and, at times, competing local structures of social provision will allow me and my team to examine the interplays between inclusion and exclusion that have long shaped European welfare provision. On the one hand, the persistent human heterogeneity of borderlands provoked more aggressive campaigns to impose individual nation states’ standardizing (and disciplining) practices, of which the granting or refusing of welfare provision was a central component. On the other hand, such heterogeneity enabled borderland individuals to contest the categories of national belonging by playing one state’s welfare offerings off of another, or relying on alternative forms of social assistance.
Through its innovative approach, which combines top-down analysis and bottom-up perspectives with interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational ones, and its ambitious program of new research in State and unexploited local archives, this project will move beyond the available scholarship by broadening the field of welfare studies while opening out as well the field of borderland studies, which for too long has been approached through the sole lens of ethnic conflict.
The project rests on the multi-scalar transnational study of social actions conceived and enacted by local actors on behalf of three interconnected categories and respective work-packages:
Families and Social Welfare
Social Welfare and Voluntary Action
Intellectual traditions and concepts of Social Welfare
Our case studies allow for comparisons across time and space, which is crucial to examine how larger historical processes have shaped social politics in the region. These large-scale processes have their own temporalities and spatialities, and our project will allow for concrete and detailed analyses of social politics in divergent ideological and socio-economic contexts.
The research project is divided in four phases and it is designed to be completely feasible not only in terms of empirical research and methodology, but also in terms of structure with the inclusion of senior academics, experienced scholars and young researchers at the beginning of their career. I am employed as Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at the European University Institute and Senior researcher at the Science and Research Centre of Koper, which allows me a stimulating cooperation with internationally recognized scholars while at the same time direct interaction with local actors.
If funded, this project will be part of a larger European project recently approved as a COST Action (European Cooperation in Science & Technology) lead by Professor Clarisse Berthezene (École des hautes études en sciences sociales – EHESS) and by Professor Laura Lee Downs (European University Institute - EUI) Who Cares in Europe? (COST action CA18119). I am the Slovenian representative and member of the Managing committee of the action. While the ARRS funded project will represent the basic research of the northern Adriatic case (and will give the necessary financial coverage), the COST project will be a unique hub for discussing our work in a transnational and comparative perspective and put the northern Adriatic borderlands on the map of top-level international academic ex
Significance for science
This research project builds upon a set of questions on social provision, which are central to present-day debates in (and about) Europe. It aims at answering them through several interconnected methodologies in humanities and social sciences. As explained in the proposal this project is extremely relevant because in an era of radically deepening inequality, cut-backs in state finance to social services and the privatization of those services, the welfare role of the state is being questioned in many ways. Politicians and policy makers alike often suggest that the crisis in welfare might be “solved” by giving greater prominence to the voluntary and private sectors. Indeed, it is often assumed that state welfare has crowded out voluntary action to the detriment of modern societies. But a growing body of historical evidence challenges this notion, and highlights the importance of voluntary action throughout the history of European welfare states, to the present. Indeed, with this project we will contribute to the advancement of modern European history in four major ways:
- by carefully examining the development of social provision outside those nation state frameworks;
- by analysing state-building processes through a lens that is both distinct from and complementary to that of nationalism/nationalist conflict, which lens currently dominates the literature on European borderlands;
- by creating a more nuanced picture of local social protection and highlighting the decisive contributions of local, regional and transnational actors in shaping national welfare systems;
- by analysing the northern Adriatic over a longer period and overcoming the traditional East/West divide that still shapes European imagination.
Significance for the country
This research project builds upon a set of questions on social provision, which are central to present-day debates in (and about) Europe. It aims at answering them through several interconnected methodologies in humanities and social sciences. As explained in the proposal this project is extremely relevant because in an era of radically deepening inequality, cut-backs in state finance to social services and the privatization of those services, the welfare role of the state is being questioned in many ways. Politicians and policy makers alike often suggest that the crisis in welfare might be “solved” by giving greater prominence to the voluntary and private sectors. Indeed, it is often assumed that state welfare has crowded out voluntary action to the detriment of modern societies. But a growing body of historical evidence challenges this notion, and highlights the importance of voluntary action throughout the history of European welfare states, to the present. Indeed, with this project we will contribute to the advancement of modern European history in four major ways:
- by carefully examining the development of social provision outside those nation state frameworks;
- by analysing state-building processes through a lens that is both distinct from and complementary to that of nationalism/nationalist conflict, which lens currently dominates the literature on European borderlands;
- by creating a more nuanced picture of local social protection and highlighting the decisive contributions of local, regional and transnational actors in shaping national welfare systems;
- by analysing the northern Adriatic over a longer period and overcoming the traditional East/West divide that still shapes European imagination.
Most important scientific results
Interim report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Interim report
