The campus community and the public are invited to participate in a day of discussion at UBC’s Okanagan campus about neoliberalism and post-welfare Nordic states. Seven experts from four universities in Iceland, Sweden and Denmark are visiting on April 11 for a workshop from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Arts building ART 218.
Presenters and topics at the public workshop include:
- Edward H. Huijbens, University of Akureyri, Iceland (Building Nordic welfare in a post-crash economy)
- Kirsten Simonsen, Roskilde University, Denmark, (Encountering racism in the post-welfare state – Danish experiences)
- Lasse Koefoed Martin, Roskilde University, Denmark, (Majority/minority nationalism in the Danish post-welfare state)
- Anders Lund Hansen, Lund University, Sweden (Fighting for the urban commons in the post-political Nordic welfare state)
- Henrik Gutzon Larsen, Aalborg University, Denmark, (The housing question revisited in the transitional Danish post-welfare state)
- Guy Baeten, Lund University, Sweden, (Swedish neoliberal cities in ‘post-neoliberal’ times)
- Eric Clark, Lund University, Sweden, (Neoliberalizing the Swedish welfare state – the human consequences)
“These are some of the top geography researchers from the Nordic countries, and this should be of wide interest among social science faculty members,” says the workshop’s organizer, Associate Professor of Geography Lawrence Berg, co-director of the Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice at UBC’s Okanagan campus.
The ‘Nordic welfare state’ has long been an international model of successful social democratic governance, with high standards of living as a result of a ‘cradle-to-grave’ welfare state, Berg says. In recent years, the global rise of neoliberalism (also known as the ‘free market’ model of social and economic governance) has dramatically changed the Nordic welfare state.
“Governments across the Nordic states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have shifted to the political right and in so doing they have begun a slow but inexorable dismantling of the welfare state,” says Berg. “This workshop will offer an opportunity to learn more about the social and spatial implications of the rise of neoliberalism in the Nordic countries.”
Funding for this workshop is provided by: the Cultural Studies program in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies; Unit 6 (Economics, History, Philosophy, Political Science and Sociology) and the Office of the Dean of the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences; Community Culture and Global Studies; Office of the Provost; and the Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice.
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