My research examines how contemporary welfare states seek to bring care closer to people’s everyday lives. As part of the project Prototyping Welfare in Europe, I conduct ethnographic research in Amsterdam, focusing on policies and practices organised around proximity, participation and mutual care.

Rather than treating welfare policy as something that is simply implemented, I study the practical and often invisible work required to make these ideals possible. I follow welfare professionals, volunteers and residents as they build the social relations, spaces and infrastructures through which welfare is made more intimate. I ask what kind of social world must be created for promises of proximity and participation to work – and who is expected to build and sustain it.

As a French researcher working in the Netherlands, I also draw on the productive estrangement of an outsider perspective to examine what can appear uncanny about the Dutch welfare state: its optimism, informality, and strong faith in proximity, participation and self-organisation.