A historical perspective on the contemporary debate about the socialization of care in Flanders. Looking for continuity and discontinuity.

This research project aims to enrich the current debate about the socialization of care by confronting it with the results of the historical-scientific research on the history of healthcare in Flanders / Belgium in the 19th and 20th century. Thereby a teleological perspective must be avoided. The current drive towards a humanization and deeper social embedding of the sector is to a large extent a break with the seemingly dominant trends in the history of health and welfare after the World War II and actually already since the breakthrough of modernity in the second half of the 18th century: professionalisation, specialization, institutionalization, scaling up, administrative formalization, technical progress ... [De Maeyer 1998]. Nevertheless, the current debate shows remarkable parallels with older social discussions. In the widespread history of health and welfare during the 19th and 20th centuries, various actors, practices and discourses can be touched on, which contrasted with the dominant trends, placed pertinent question marks, and offered alternative paths. It is therefore possible to give the current debate a historical depth, and to let the contemporary policy options enter into a dialogue with the past of the health care and the welfare sector. But that requires respect for the historical context and therefore a profound diachronic analysis. In this way parallels and continuity can be uncovered between historical and current discussions. But of course many divergences and even contrasts will be brought to light.

This research project is part of a project that KADOC wants to go through in 2019-2023 to shape a sustainable heritage for and with the Flemish healthcare sector.