Care Infrastructures in Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods at Times of Welfare State Change: Finland and UK Compared

Abstract

In this article, we approach urban cultures of care from the perspective that analyses care and caring as taking place between bottom‐up, everyday practices and welfare state structures. We begin with a broad understanding of care as a fundamental activity that sustains and nurtures our shared environments. This perspective highlights the often overlooked and marginalised nature of care. To capture the complexity of care, we identify care as an everyday activity with significant political and ethical implications for urban life. Drawing on qualitative and ethnographic research conducted in Finland and the UK, two distinct welfare state contexts, we investigate how urban cultures of care unfold in marginalised communities at times of welfare state change. Through case studies focused on community‐led initiatives such as the sharing and gifting of food, clothing, and household items in the UK, and neighbourhood responses to urban development in Finland, we illustrate how caring practices are shaped by shifting state infrastructures. These practices as “infrastructures of care” are shown to arise through everyday interactions and affective engagements within urban spaces. We conclude by considering the broader potential of local care infrastructures to contribute to alternative economic models rooted in solidarity, particularly as welfare systems undergo significant change.