The ’Discourse, ideas, and narratives’ research area at DaWS conducts detailed comparative studies of key concepts and ideas such as 'welfare state' or 'democracy', studies of the language of social policy, as well as specific discourses such as welfare state criticism or migration debates. Research in this area has opened ways for new theoretical perspectives by bringing the history of literature and literary theory into use and discussing the interplay between literature and the development of the welfare state.
Words and ideas matter in manifold ways, hence our researchers use multiple methodological approaches such as attitude studies based on surveys, conceptual history, narrative analysis, and discourse analysis. This research area is multi-disciplinary including both social sciences, history and literary studies.
Research topics and projects covered in this DaWS research area include:
• USES of Literature
Contact: Klaus Petersen, Bryan Yazell and Peter Simonsen
• The comparative and transnational history of the concept ‘welfare state’
Contact: Klaus Petersen
• Social Scientists’ Use of (fictional) Literature
Contact: Klaus Petersen, Bryan Yazell, Paul Marx and Patrick Fessenbecker
• Genre Fiction, Global Crises, and the Future
Contact: Bryan Yazell
• Vagrant Narratives: Governing the Welfare Subject in the US and Britain, 1880-1940
Contact: Bryan Yazell
• Ideational analyses of social policy development in Tanzania and South Africa
Contact: Marianne Ulriksen
• Welfare semantics and discourses
• History and development of key concepts researchers use for analyzing social policy