Statecrafting on the Fringes

Statecrafting on the Fringes draws critical attention to welfare practices in Denmark addressing the other: dislocated people within the post-1945 welfare state. The book deals with educational work, social work, and healthcare work addressing Greenlanders, the German minority, problem children, as well as immigrants and refugees. Through historical and sociological studies of welfare work understood as statecrafting practices, which are strengthened by the presence of the other within the Danish welfare nation-state, the authors present critical analyses of the humanitarian imperialism and the civilizing missions addressing the other. The book thus challenges the idealization of the Nordic welfare state model and characterizes Danish welfare universalism as being intertwined with national integrationism and understandings of cultural superiority. At its core, the book helps us to understand the inner workings of a much-celebrated welfare nation-state, what its implications are in an era of globalization and migration, and how we could think about it differently.