How do we house our welfare? Mapping and conceptualizing privatization and re-municipalization of community service properties in Sweden
Facts
- Contact person:
- Jennie Gustafsson
- Financer:
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- Vetenskapsrådet
- Responsible at MaU:
- Jennie Gustafsson
- Project members at MaU:
- Time frame:
- 01 February 2026 - 31 December 2029
- Faculty/department:
- Research environment :
- Research subject:
About the project
This research project aims to examine privatisation, re-municipalization and municipal governance of community service properties in Sweden, 2013-2025. There is a distinct need for a more comprehensive social scientific perspective to explore the implications for welfare provision in light of privatisation and re-municipalization of community service properties used for publicly financed services, such as care homes and schools. This project provides such an intervention by combining transaction data analysis, GIS and regression analysis with qualitative methods and theoretical exploration. The purpose is to conceptually develop economic and urban geographical perspectives on privatisation and re-municipalization with the theoretical lenses of municipal governance and social reproduction, and to contribute to the geographic research field with novel knowledge on the public ownership of property.
The project plans to use mixed methods to
- Study the privatisation and remunicipalization of community service properties,
- explore the geographies of transactions through spatiotemporal analysis,
- examine the municipal governance of public assets, and
- elaborate theoretical perspectives on privatisation and re-municipalization within the field of economic urban geography, focusing on municipal governance and social reproduction.
The project will develop novel methodologies and urgent knowledge about the ownership of public assets central to welfare service provision.