Research project SS/D4/01 (Research action SS)
The considerable expansion in the number of social welfare initiatives on the margins - or at the centre - of the public system for collective insurance and the extension of the latter to a growing number of fields of intervention gives rise to new interests and renewed hope in a socio-political context dominated by control of the cost price of government support, and to the danger of a re-ordering of this support.
This study develops an inclusive vision of these initiatives and their foundations and characteristics in the health field. The relationship between the formal and informal sectors, which has traditionally been viewed as a binary one, is seen here rather as a coherent whole. The study is devoted firstly to understanding the different models of informal initiatives and the consequences of their development on actual practice, and the philosophical and theoretical context into which this practice fits. Secondly, a systematic analysis is carried out of the different forms of cooperation between the formal and informal sectors in order to determine the mechanisms responsible for the failure of such cooperation or the factors underpinning its success (taking account of such aspects as problems of marginalisation and the "chronicisation" of illnesses).
The aim of the project is to achieve an understanding of the social need that gives rise to informal initiatives and their development, to determine whether it would be better to integrate the proposed services in the formal sector, and whether their specific role does not relate to operation on the periphery.
