The “case”, the life and its conditions: A political anthropology of welfare state in Italy

Abstract

In this article, forms of social assistance aimed at elders with disabilities are addressed through a definition of the welfare state today in Italy from an ethnographic perspective. The field of the healthcare, which tends to be standardized according to contemporary biomedical, bureaucratic and economic-administrative parameters, is observed by focusing on agency developed in the interaction between social workers, care givers and the users between home, the Health Care System and cooperatives of social services. In this way, the article analyses everyday experiences in the intimate sphere of the home of the patient and the chains of interaction that unfold in the public sphere. Based on this analysis, we propose to rethink the vulnerability experienced by all involved subjects in relation to the recognition of rights and political participation. The case study allows us to make an anthropological interrogation of the social question concerning recent transformations of the labour market. Social work involved in the definition of a case is a crucial moment in the struggle for recognition. In such circumstances people expose and share the events related to the own proper body and social suffering, in order to legitimate requests in which it is questioned the right to exist, where the life itself is at stake.