Paper short abstract:

The political economy of the Danish welfare state has historically supported the rise in solo living. Four out of ten adults live alone. In this paper I unravel the forms of relatedness and vulnerability that make themselves visible in the context of solo living, shifts in care politics and cancer.

Paper long abstract:

Denmark is among the societies in the world where most people live alone. Through universal health coverage and high levels of social security, the political economy of the Danish welfare state has historically supported the rise in solo living. In this paper I explore the care trajectories of people who live alone while undergoing cancer treatment. I suggest that care politics in the context of welfare have become the architect of human vulnerabilities.

Departing in prolonged fieldwork among people who live alone and are confronted with their own mortality, embodied being and increasing dis-abled-bodies due to cancer, and inspired by the critical phenomenology of Lisa Guenther and Judith Butlers notion of vulnerability as a way of understanding human subjectivity, I unravel the forms of relatedness and vulnerability that make themselves visible in the context of solo living, welfare and cancer. In particular, I explore the painful abandonment of one interlocutor, Michael by both welfare institutions and family, and the cultural critique that he develops – running from the intimacies of the Danish family to the large-scale triage of the welfare state – in the course of his disease and his death.