Health and welfare
How we organise care, welfare and education is never neutral. Behind every choice in policy or practice lie normative assumptions: ideas about what is good, what matters and who is heard. These choices affect everyone in the field – from care providers to clients and residents of institutions, from formal to informal care providers, from teachers to students.
Within this theme, we look at these underlying values from a care-ethical and humanistic perspective. We focus on the often invisible or unheard experiences of people in vulnerable positions. Think of people dealing with physical or mental health problems, poverty, trauma, chronic illness, moral injury or loneliness.
We also explore ideas about the good life, also known as flourishing, and ways in which people can contribute to each other’s flourishing. Through both theoretical and practical research, we seek to understand how meaning, ethics and everyday experiences come together.