Fiona Williams is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Leeds. Between 1999-2005 she was Director of the ESRC CAVA Research Group on Care, Values and the Future of Welfare, and now co-directs the Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities (CIRCLE) at the University of Leeds. She has written widely on gender, 'race' and ethnicity in social policy, and is currently researching the employment of migrant workers in home-based care in Europe. Her teaching and research interests focus on the place of care in contemporary society, including the changing nature of family lives and personal relationships, and the development of a political ethic of care. Her recent publications include Gendering citizenship in Western Europe: new challenges for citizenship research in a cross-national context with R. Lister, A. Antonnen, M. Bussemaker, U.Gerhard, S.Johansson, J. Heinen, A. Leira, R. Lister, B. Siim. C. Tobio, and A.Gavanas, (The Policy Press, 2007); ‘The intersection of child care regimes and migration regimes: a three–country study’ (with A. Gavanas) in H. Lutz (ed) Migration and Domestic Work: a European Perspective on a Global Theme, (Routledge, forthcoming 2008); Empowering Parents in Local Sure Start Programmes (with H. Churchill, DfES, 2006); ‘Contesting ‘race’ and gender in the European Union: a multi-layered recognition struggle‘ in Recognition Struggles and Social Movements: Contested Identities, Power and Agency ed. B. Hobson. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003; Rethinking Families (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2004) and ‘In and beyond New Labour: towards a new political ethic of care’ in Critical Social Policy, 21(4), 2001. Fiona currently a member of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Strategic Research Board, is on the Social Policy subpanel of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, and is an elected Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences. She is co-editor of Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society. In relation to the original CAVA programme, Fiona is the leader of Strand 6, the co-leader of Strands 1, 2 and 5 and has also worked on Strand 4. Fiona is also working with Anna Gavanas on the International Care Chains project. Fiona's current research focuses on the place of care in contemporary society. The projects she is working on cover the ethical, social, political and international dimensions of care. An interview with Professor Fiona Williams is available in ESRC Voices. [read more]. 'New Labour's family policy' in M.Powell, L.Bauld, and K.Clarke (eds.) Social Policy Review, 17, Bristol: Policy Press/Social Policy Association, 2005, pp 289-302. 'A good-enough life: developing the grounds for a political ethic of care' in Soundings: a Journal of Politics and Culture, Issue 30, Summer 2005, pp 17-32. 'Trends in Women's Employment, Domestic Service, and Female Migration: Changing and Competing Patterns of Solidarity', in T. Knijn and A. Komter (eds.) Solidarity between the sexes and generations: transformations in Europe, Edward Elgar, 2004. [read more]. 'Contesting 'race' and gender in the European Union: a multi-layered recognition struggle', in B. Hobson (ed) Recognition Struggles and Social Movements: Contested Identities, Power and Agency, Cambridge University Press, 2003. [read more]. 'New Divisions of Labour: Alternatives for Working and Caring' co-edited with S. Duncan, Special Issue of Critical Social Policy, 22(1), 2002. [read more]. 'The Presence of Feminism in the Future of Welfare' in Economy and Society, 31 (4) November 2002, pp.502-519. [read abstract]. 'In and beyond New Labour: towards a new political ethic of care' in Critical Social Policy, Issue 21(4), 2001, pp.467-493. [read abstract]. 'Good-Enough Principles for Welfare' in Journal of Social Policy, 28(4), 1999, pp.667-687. [read abstract] International Sociological Association Research Committee 19 Annual Conference, 8-10 September 2005, Chicago: Intersecting issues of gender, 'race', and migration in the changing care regimes of UK, Sweden and Spain [click here for PDF version] [click here for official Conference site]. Social Policy Association Conference, 27-29 June 2005, University of Bath: Commitments to Care: Moving from Public Responsibility for Care to Care as a Public Virtue [click here for PDF version] [click here for official Conference site]. Annual Conference of the Finnish Social Policy Association, 24 October 2003, Finland: Rethinking Care in Social Policy [click here for Word version] ParentChild 2002 International Conference on Adolescence, 19th April, London: Changing Lives in a Changing World [click here for Word version] NFPI Keynote lecture for launch of Parents' Week 2001, 22 October, London: Changing Families, Changing Values [click here for html version] ESRC 4th National Social Science Conference, 28 November 2000, London: Time to Care, Time not to Care [click here for html version] Solidarity
Between the Sexes: Transformations in Europe This book combines a theoretical and empirical cross-national perspective to examine how societal transformations in European welfare states affect patterns of solidarity between men and women, and across generations. The authors' research has highlighted substantial discrepancies in various countries between the assumptions made at the macro-level of social policy on family issues and the reality of women's and men's contributions at home. In countries where social policy relies on family solidarity as the main source of support, this may result in growing social inequality. Finally, the chapters reveal the crucial role of women in the transformation of family life and welfare state policy. These conclusions could have important ramifications for European welfare policy. Recognition
Struggles and Social Movements: Contested Identities, Power and
Agency Recognition Struggles and Social Movements is the first book to look comparatively and cross-nationally at the dynamic interplay between those fighting for a fairer division of economic resources and those struggling for recognition and respect of group differences. Combining theory and empirical research, it decodes the moral grammar of recognition into real struggles of collective actors who contest social hierarchies in arenas of power - from the Roma in Hungary to the Travesti prostitutes in Brazil, from abortion discourse in the US and Germany to the translation of feminist texts from East and West. Looking through multiple mirrors of gender, race/ethnic and sexual identities, the authors dramatize the competition and conflicts among groups vying for recognition. Written by prominent scholars across disciplinary and geographical borders, this book breaks new ground in social movement studies confronting issues of power and governance, authenticity, and boundary making. The
Presence of Feminism in the Future of Welfare Abstract: This article argues that the contribution of second wave feminism to new welfare practice and provision is greater than recent discussions of welfare reforms have acknowledged. Along with other new social movements and grass-roots welfare campaigns, feminist activism and its critiques provide an important moral and political case for a new welfare society. This paper proposes four principles which underpin such a case - autonomy, mutualism, inclusive diversity and voice. Aspects of these are discussed, developing, in particular, an argument for a political ethic of care. New
Divisions of Labour: Alternatives for Working and Caring In
and Beyond New Labour: Towards a New Political Ethics of Care Abstract: This article argues for a political ethics of care to balance New Labour's current preoccupation with the ethic of paid work. However, care as a practice invokes different experiences, meanings, contexts and multiple relations of power. With this in mind, the article traces the development of the concept of care taking up, in particular, challenges and differences raised by disability, 'race' and migration. These offer important insights for a new political ethics of care whose key dimensions are spelled out in the final part of the article. Good
Enough Principles for Welfare Abstract: The aim of this article is to widen the grounds of the debate on the relationship between values, social change and welfare reform. In the public debate on welfare reform and the Third Way the significance of the welfare politics and campaigns of civil society in challenging the old welfare order has received little acknowledgement. The article argues that these politics and campaigns have, along with both the New Right and New Labour, attempted to construct a new vision of an 'active welfare subject'. In the process they have also expanded the moral repertoire for understanding people's engagement with welfare beyond the self-interest/altruism dichotomy. The article uses this new repertoire to propose seven key principles for a reordering of the social relations of welfare.
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