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GOLTC

GLOBAL
OBSERVATORY
OF LONG-TERM
CARE

Part of the International Long-Term Care Policy Network (ILPN)

 

Matous Jelinek

Anthropology / University of Amsterdam

Matous Jelinek

Matous Jelinek is a social anthropologist specializing in the study of long-term care, with a focus on how intersections of ethnicity, gender, class, and history shape care provision and broader welfare arrangements. His research examines the organization and governance of transnational commercial care infrastructures in Central Europe. He completed his PhD in Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and contributed to the ERC Starting Grant project ReloCare: Relocating Care within Europe, led by Kristine Krause at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Countries Czech Republic; Netherlands; Norway; Poland; Slovakia;
Topics Care inequalities; Care management; Care work and migration; Dementia care and support; Ethics and care; Gender and care; LTC and people with learning disabilities; LTC and people with mental health conditions; LTC Workforce; Minorities and LTC; Quality of care; Volunteering and LTC;
Methods Discourse analysis; Document analysis; Ethnography; Grounded Theory; Interviews; Policy analysis; Qualitative studies; Theory and frameworks; Vignettes and narratives;
Role Research;
Interest Groups Ageing and Place; Care home markets and regulation; Innovation in Long-Term Care; Migration Mobility and Care Workers; Qualitative Research; Strengthening Responses to Dementia; Working Conditions and Wages in Long-Term Care;
Websitehttps://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matous-Jelinek-2
Research interests

Anthropology of Care & Social Services: transnational care relocation; institutional care; everyday care practices; organizational strategies in care; social inequalities in care.

Ethnicity & Identity: ethnicity, identity, and historical differentiation; intersections of ethnicity, language, and care.

Regional & Historical Studies: Central and Eastern Europe; post-socialist transformations; historical entanglements and socio-economic inequalities.

Education & Development: anthropology of education, anthropology of development.

Methodology: ethnography, qualitative research methods, organizational analysis; socio-material approaches.
Key publications
  • Jelínek, M. (2026). “Mobilizing and Balancing Differences: Care Relocation as the Work of Transnational Acting.” Global Networks 26, 1: e70041.
  • Jelínek, M. (2025). Shared language as a scarce resource: Organizing communication in care homes with foreign clientele. Human Organization, 84(3), 304-315.
  • Jelínek, M., & Prieler, V. (2025). How to close down a care home in 24 hours: Privatization, fragmentation, and ambiguous quality regulation in senior long-term care in the Czech Republic. Problemy Polityki Społecznej. Social Policy Issues, 68(1), 1–18.
  • Jelínek, M. (2024). Vzdělávání jako nástroj rozvoje: vzdělávací strategie a pedagogická autorita neziskových organizací v práci s romskými dětmi a mládeží [Education as Development Tool: Educational Strategies and Pedagogic Authority of NGOs Working with Roma Children and Youth]. Sociální studia / Social Studies, 2(2024), 27–44.
  • Souralová, A., & Jelínek, M. (2018). Constructing professional services: For-profit care and domestic work agencies in the Czech Republic. Women’s Studies International Forum, 70, 53–61.