ASSEMBLAGES, TRANSLATION, AND INTERMEDIARIES IN SOUTH EAST EUROPE

ABSTRACT

International and transnational processes pose distinctive challenges to the traditional boundaries and conceptual frameworks of the discipline of social policy. International actors can no longer simply be ‘added on’ to traditional national studies. Rather, a new vocabulary and epistemology is needed to capture the complexity and liminality of the encounters between actors, sites, discourses, scales and contexts. In this text, based on empirical insights from South East Europe, we interrogate the ways in which various kinds of network-based organisations, and new intermediaries have effectively depoliticised social policy, whilst emphasising the possibilities of a new internationalisation of political struggles and mobilisations.

Keywords:

• welfare
• transnationalism
• development
• South East Europe
• translation
• projectisation

Notes

¹The inspiration for much of this text comes from our involvement with a group of researchers and practitioners exploring 'Intermediaries and translation in interstitial spaces'. Particular thanks here go to John Clarke, Fred Cocozzelli, Bob Deacon, Reima Ana Maglajlic-Holiček, Ešref Kenan Rašidagic and Siniša Zrinščak for their collaborations, insights, and enthusiasm. Whilst, at times here, we have borrowed significantly from their work, responsibility for what follows is ours alone, of course.