Conference • NNHSH 2015 Theme: Encounters between Nordic health, welfare and the global: Challenges and possibilities

In a so-called globalized world characterized by the continuous movement of people and pathogens crossing national borders, the Nordic welfare states can, arguably, no longer be studied as isolated entities removed from their broader international and geopolitical context. For example, as was aptly illustrated by the 2009 swine flu outbreak, infectious diseases spread at a pace unmatched by previous pandemics. As such, disease has the potential to rapidly affect a large number of people in places as geographically distant as Mexico and Sweden. As a consequence, public health decisions and responses are made at both the UN- and at the national level, thus emphasizing how global interests have become deeply intertwined with national concerns. Moreover, travel does not only further the transmission of disease, but also affects how public health and welfare provision and responsibilities are managed locally. Globalization and neo-liberalism have, among other things, contributed to the reframing of health and welfare as matters of bio-security and border control, rather than merely reflecting issues of well-being and care. Such processes of exclusion and inclusion influence people’s health seeking-behaviours and leads, in turn, to increased social inequalities within changing Nordic welfare systems originally based on shared ideologies of “equality”. However, encounters between Nordic health, welfare and the global do not necessarily consist solely in changes or challenges in public health policies. Instead such meetings may take place in everyday interactions between for instance lay people, medical staff and the social services. To marginalised groups, such meetings may thus represent desired opportunities to improve health or living conditions