IN-EAST News
20.05.2015 - 00:00
Karen Shire discussant at the Excellence Cluster "Asia and Europe"
Fr, May 22, 2015
Karen Shire will join the discussion on health care in Europe and Asia at the Excellence Cluster "Asia and Europe" at the University of Heidelberg. She will be discussant of the presentation of Emiko Ochiai (Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University) to comment on
Changing care diamonds in Europe and Asia: Is Europe becoming Asia?
Friday, May 22, 2015, 4–6 pm
University of Heidelberg, Karl Jaspers Centre, Voßstr. 2, Bld. 4400, Room 212
Abstract:
The purpose of my presentation is to introduce the ideas and frameworks of the research project I am conducting in France as a Blaise Pascal Chair and receive comments from German perspectives as well as recruiting possible collaborators in this project. This is a project on changing childcare and elderly care provision and the roles of family, state, market and community in Europe, compared with Asian countries, bridging the fields of sociology, social policy and gender studies. In contrast to European countries that developed welfare states and created systems of public provision of care in the 20th century, Asian countries have been far behind and struggling to develop them since the turn of the 21st century. However, due to rapid changes on both sides, a new landscape is emerging. For example, in Japan wider socialisation of care has been achieved under long-term care insurance, while in Europe the individualization of the care agenda in the tide of welfare retrenchment has prompted the coming back of community and extended kin such as grandparents in the case of childcare, as well as commodification of care through international migration of care workers. We are inclined to ask if Europe is becoming Asia and if Asia is becoming Europe. The aim of the research is to provide answers to these questions through intensive field research in European countries and compare them with the outcomes of my former research in Asian countries. This is an attempt to produce new views and ideas of a sustainable human future through collaboration between Asian and European researchers.