CIRCLE - Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities

A conference and workshop was held in Stockholm in October 2009 and brought together an international team including scholars from Sweden (Christina Bergqvist, Barbara Hobson and Marta Szebehely), Finland (Anneli Antonnen, Teppo Kroger), Australia (Deborah Brennan, Bettina Cass), the UK (Sue Himmelweit, Fiona Williams and Sue Yeandle) and Canada (Ito Peng and Rianne Mahon).

The conference and workshop addressed the major themes on Markets, Migration and Cash for Care. The aim was to place recent developments in the Nordic and liberal welfare states into a broader international context, taking into account the increased movements of people (especially women) around the world and the ever-growing emphasis on the marketisation of care.

Fiona opened the conference with remarks drawn from her recent paper Claiming and Framing in the Making of Care Policies: The Recognition and Redistribution of Care. Dr Tine Tostgaard (Denmark) and Professor Kari Waerness (Norway) provided commentary on the paper, while Professor Sonya Michael (USA) summed up the proceedings.

The team are working on a number of collaborative activities and  envisage an outcome in the form of an edited book or a journal special issue.

At the Stockholm conference

_{Back row, from left: Anneli Antonnen (Finland), Christina Bergqvist (Sweden), Teppo Kröger (Finland); middle row: Barbara Hobson (Sweden), Marta Szebehely (Sweden), Sue Himmelweit (UK), Fiona Williams (UK), Sue Yeandle (UK), Rianne Mahon (Canada); front row: Bettina Cass (Australia), Deborah Brennan (Australia), Sonya Michel (USA). Photo: Frey's Hotel, Stockholm.}