Second Consortium meeting in Cluj-Napoca

The two days were - as usually - very intensive, and we were able to update each other on the progress of each case study and the empirical findings from the fieldwork conducted so far. We had many productive and insightful discussions, in which we could link the different themes back to the main analytical and thematic points of the project, e.g. the professionalization, marketization and transformation of care. We were also very grateful for the valuable feedback from two invited experts, the sociologist Aniela Matei from the National Scientific Research Institute for Labour and Social Protection (INCSMPS) in Bucharest and Cristina Raț, who is a lecturer at the Sociology Department of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca with a research focus on the relation between social inequalities and welfare states.

We also used our time together to discuss further meetings and conferences as well as joint publications and dissemination projects and plans, as for example our podcast series or workshops with practitioners in the fourth year of our project.

On the second day, we took part in a training on digital ethnography by Radu Meza, who is Associate Professor at the College of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Journalism and Digital Media Department of the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj. Furthermore we had a slot for the PhD students, where we shared experiences from our field research and talked about research ethics in social sciences, reciprocity and the relationship between interview partners and researchers, in order to learn from each other.

Thanks to our generous and marvellous hosts in Cluj and our wonderful team, we were able to do all this in a welcoming atmosphere and democratic and supportive working environment where we all felt comfortable and enabled to advance further in our joint and individual projects and plans. We are all looking forward to meeting each other again at the VW-symposium in September 2024 in Hanover and next year at our next Consortium meeting in Prague!