Social politics in European borderlands, 1870s-1990s: A comparative and transnational study (hereafter Sociobord) seeks to reframe the history of welfare and social care in modern Europe by restoring to view the contribution of local actors to shaping welfare systems in three European borderlands: Galicia, the Northeastern Adriatic and the Franco/Belgian/Luxembourg/German border region from the late 19th century to the end of the 1990s. Sociobord thus turns our attention to the co-construction of social assistance by public and private actors in three borderland contexts marked by social, cultural, economic, religious or ethnic diversity. Here, the reach of central states often fluctuated and a range of welfare structures, based on national, but also non-national forms of identity/solidarity flourished.
The project thus initiates a dialogue between two fields that have yet to engage with one another - welfare studies and border studies - and places that dialogue at the core of its methodology. This novel approach reveals the manifold ways in which borders have shaped welfare, and welfare has shaped borders. We analyze these processes by placing intensively researched case studies of local phenomena in comparative and transnational frameworks, examining similarities and differences between north-western, eastern, and south-eastern borderlands while tracing the circulation of concepts, people and practices. Within each case study, we are deploying a bottom up approach that emphasizes the dynamic relationships among three distinct actors - voluntary associations, families, and states - who interact at different levels and in multiple ways in the construction of social protection on behalf of three categories of recipients: working women, children, and veterans.
The project’s methodology permits us to examine a wide range of local welfare structures, based on national, but also non-national forms of identity and solidarity. Focusing on these overlapping, and at times competing structures of social provision allows us to explore the interplays between inclusion and exclusion that have long shaped European welfare provision by homing in on those contexts where such competition was particularly visible. For it is our conviction that the long-range historical study of local actors' ideas and practices around social welfare in European borderlands has much to tell us about the development of welfare across Europe in general.
