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A Feminist Socio-Legal Approach to Ageing, Gender and Welfare in Northern Sweden

  • Lena WennbergEmail author
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Part of the International Perspectives on Aging book series (Int. Perspect. Aging, volume 22)

Abstract

A feminist socio-legal approach, understood as the “interface with the context within which law exists” is in this chapter elaborated and used to identify, think through and discuss the intersecting legal, political and economic discourses that could have constraining effects on the welfare of women in the rural and multicultural northernmost part of Sweden. The recognition of the gendered ‘socio’ and the identification of power imbalances in policy and law, underline the importance of a framework for further comparative analyses of welfare services and care in context. In an optimistic view on human rights, the strength of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), with its holistic and transformative approach, could provide a space for more grounded empirical research – on whether and with what outcome the CEDAW has been invoked, adopted or resisted in specific contexts – and jurisprudence that could promote social change and a life in dignity for women of any age, culture, ethnicity, or minority group.

Keywords

Socio-legal studies Ageing Gender Welfare New governance Human rights Elder services and care Swedish welfare state 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Umeå University, Sweden, who co-sponsored the AEPA-Wel workshop hosted by Umeå Forum for Studies in Law and Society in Umeå, Oct 2017.

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© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Political ScienceUmeå UniversityUmeåSweden

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