'Women', Welfare, Textual Politics and Critique : An Invitation to a ThinkingWriting Methodology in the Study of Welfare (Republished dissertation originally published 2001)

Abstract: What is the relationship between the social construction of different categories of ’women’ and the making of welfare states in specific moments of textual politics in a Nordic welfare state context? How is it possible to develop a methodology for critical (self)reflective thinking in the process of producing academic knowledge? In this dissertation the themes of ’women’ and welfare are analysed and interpreted within a textual context of Nordic welfare state thinking. How the meaning of welfare takes shape through the category of ’women’ is discussed and critiqued with attention to epistemological and methodological issues. Individual memory work is used as a way of developing crtical self-reflection on the way academisation operates through a female individual. Additionally, creative and reflective writing methodologies such as theatre, dialogue and letter writing is used to explore complex relationships of power in the process of producing knowledge. Livholts original, intellectually stimulating and accessible dissertation is an invitation to readers in social work, sociology, and gender studies, and more broadly of methodological interest for the critical study of welfare.