Introduction

In this concluding chapter, my aim is not to summarise, or indeed synthesise, what has gone before. Instead, inspired by some of the major themes within the preceding chapters of the book, I will seek to outline what I see as four major future challenges facing research, policy and practice in the field of child and family social work, not only in the Nordic countries but also beyond. These are vital if we wish to create what might be regarded as truly empowering welfare systems for those living within them.

I undertake this task as an ‘insider/outsider’ within the Nordic countries both as a researcher and as a member of society. Of course intense debates about the possibilities – as well as the potential advantages and disadvantages – of being an insider/outsider in social research have been ongoing at least since Robert Merton's famous article a quarter of a century ago (Merton, 1972). In recent years, the concept of insider/outsider has become central to more postmodern appreciations of the complexities around identity and research (see, for example, Skeggs, 1997) – complexities that cannot be entered into here because of limited space. Suffice to say that there seem to be considerable epistemological advantages – as well as dangers – in exploiting the ever-shifting boundaries of being an insider/outsider. And I intend to use those advantages here.

A Nordic welfare model: developing more complex analyses incorporating ‘bodily citizenship’

My first inspiration is derived from Chapters Two and Three in this volume: the interrogation of a Nordic welfare model. These two chapters make a valuable contribution in helping readers – especially those from outside the Nordic countries – appreciate both the dynamic heterogeneities as well as homogeneities of the Nordic countries. The picture is dynamicbecause the complex intermeshing of similarities and dissimilarities between them is made even more complex by the fact that the trajectories of these countries are constantly changing. I would in fact argue for even greater complexity in terms not only of the Nordic welfare systems but also of comparative welfare analysis more generally. For, I have suggested elsewhere (Pringle, 1998, 2005; Hearn and Pringle, 2006a) that comparative assessments of welfare systems must focus far more than they have done hitherto on multiple – and indeed intersecting– dimensions of disadvantage and social exclusion.