Social work education in Europe: towards 2025

ABSTRACT

Responses to profound contemporary transformation processes are characterised by ‘situationalism’ as the expression of resignation in the face of overwhelming complexity. An overemphasis on personal autonomy accompanied by a withdrawal to the seeming security of ‘given boundaries’ undermines programmes of social solidarity, which had been a means of creating stability and social integration at national and European levels. Social work’s origins as an academic discipline and as a profession reach back to the crisis phenomena that accompanied the early ‘project of modernity’, and reflection on that history can help to identify a critical role of social work education in view of what could be described as the current crisis of modernity. A future vision of social work education centres on the conventional mandate of this profession to ‘make a critical difference’ with regard to the deepening of social divisions through rampant individualism as well as concerning trends to impose uniformity as a substitute for equality.     

Variegated neoliberalization: geographies,modalities, pathways

Across the broad field of heterodox political economy, ‘neoliberalism’ appears to have become a rascal concept – promiscuously pervasive, yet inconsistently defined, empirically imprecise and frequently contested. Controversies regarding its precise meaning are more than merely semantic. They generally flow from underlying disagreements regarding the sources, expressions and implications of contemporary regulatory transformations. In this article, we consider the handling of ‘neoliberalism’ within three influential strands of heterodox political economy – the varieties of capitalism approach; historical materialist international political economy; and governmentality approaches. While each of these research traditions sheds light on contemporary processes of market‐oriented regulatory restructuring, we argue that each also underplays and/or misreads the systemically uneven, or ‘variegated’, character of these processes. Enabled by a critical interrogation of how each approach interprets the geographies, modalities and pathways of neoliberalization processes, we argue that the problematic of variegation must be central to any adequate account of marketized forms of regulatory restructuring and their alternatives under post‐1970s capitalism. Our approach emphasizes the cumulative impacts of successive ‘waves’ of neoliberalization upon uneven institutional landscapes, in particular: (a) their establishment of interconnected, mutually recursive policy relays within an increasingly transnational field of market‐oriented regulatory transfer; and (b) their infiltration and reworking of the geoinstitutional frameworks, or ‘rule regimes’, within which regulatory experimentation unfolds. This mode of analysis has significant implications for interpreting the current global economic crisis.     

One-dimensional times: a dialectical response to the Irish Times’ coverage of the global financial crisis

A growing literature claims that critique of neoliberal capitalism after the global financial crisis (GFC) has been ‘captured’ within the logic of capital. Such research argues that ‘capture’ is achieved through a process whereby critique of neoliberalism is transformed into arguments for more neoliberalism. This creates a one-dimensional ‘recovery’ discourse. Drawing on Marcuse’s theory outlining ‘one-dimensional society’ and critical discourse analysis, this study assesses the relevancy of such claims for an Irish medium, the Irish Times, through an examination of GFC-related discourse during 2009–2010. This study finds that economic discourse in the Irish Times is captured when organisational bias allows pro-neoliberal actors from business and government privileged access to discourse production. We engage a call from organisation studies for a dialectical reading of captured discourse. We end with a discussion of the limits of this reflexive approach to capitalism’s contradictions for disrupting its ongoing hegemony.     

The great trasformismo

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to explore the commonalities and differences between Karl Polanyi and Antonio Gramsci in their assessment of the origins of fascism as located within the rise of capitalism in the nineteenth century and its structural impasse in the twentieth century. Specifically, the aim is to trace a set of associations between Polanyi and Gramsci on the transformations wrought across the states-system of Europe prior to the crises that engulfed capitalism leading to the rise of fascism in the twentieth century. Focusing on the class structures that emerged out of the expansion of capitalism across Europe in the nineteenth century reveals that there was less a ‘great transformation’ in terms of a rupture with the past through the rise of liberal capitalism. Rather, there was more a slow and protracted process of class restoration known as passive revolution, or a ‘Great Trasformismo’, referring to the molecular absorption of class contradictions marking the consolidation and expansion of capitalist social relations. In sum, it is argued that The Great Transformation is understood better if read through the epoch of passive revolution, or The Great Trasformismo, which entailed the restoration and maintenance of class dominance through state power. This approach therefore opens up questions, rather than forecloses answers, about the historical geographies constituting the spaces and places of the political economy of modern capitalism.     

The subject of objects: Marx,new materialism, & queer forms of life

Abstract

This article examines two interrelated themes in the scholarship categorized as ‘new materialism’: first, the aim to undermine the subject/object distinction; second, the proposition that agency exists across the material world. While new materialists, such as Jane Bennett, conceive of their approach as an intervention against the injurious effects of capitalism, I argue that destabilizing the object/subject binary and endowing inanimate objects with vitality and agency is actually a constitutive feature of capitalism itself. To illustrate this point, I turn to Marx’s analysis, providing a queer reading of his theorization of commodities. Revisting Marx’s account of commodity fetishism in tandem with new materialism yields fresh insights into the logics of capitalism, specifically, the manner in which it thrives on concurrently producing and erasing subjectivities, thereby distorting social materiality and material sociality.     

The new left,Jeremy Corbyn and the war of position: a new coherence or further fragmentation?

ABSTRACT

This article assesses the emergence of the new groups, organizations and protests that have emerged since the financial crisis and asks whether we can understand these as a fresh development where diverse movements fashioned through different ideological departure points have moved towards a form of convergence in which a wider hegemonic project can be fashioned, or whether in fact such proclamations are effectively another form of ‘wishing thinking’ in terms of left-wing renewal is concerned. In line with recently argued work, it suggests that for the left to look to overcome the ideological obstacles that plagued its twentieth century development, it needs to provide a wide/open set of principles that look to contest dominant norms of the neoliberal order that exist at the many levels of civil society. In this way a ‘war of position’ (to borrow from Gramsci) needs to be forged that looks to avoid charges of ‘elitism’ and ‘fragmentation’ that had seen the left to fail as a coherent alternative since the cold war. Whilst the new left has forged forms of contestation at the civil level (for example Occupy and the ESF) and more recently at the Political level (with Sanders, Corbyn and Syriza/Podermos), it has yet to form a consistent and coherent war of position to neoliberal capitalism.     

The power to transform? Mexico’s ‘Fourth Transformation’ under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador

ABSTRACT

We engage in a conjunctural analysis of political change (Gramsci; Hall), power (Lukes) and transformation (Polanyi) to inquire into López Obrador’s political project; ‘The Fourth Transformation’ from July 2018 until December 2019. We analyse characteristics and consequences of the use of power by López Obrador as concerns the ‘power to do what?’ in the name of the 4T, shadowed by structural constraints. Additionally, inquiring the paradox of neoliberal ideas underlying changes in the Federal Public Administration in the name of austerity and the fight against corruption. We conclude that López Obrador is not exploiting this historical conjuncture to bring about ‘the primacy of politics over economics,’ and that signs have yet to emerge of a comprehensive transformation of the neoliberal economic foundations, from a structural analysis perspective. The paradox of neoliberal ideas underlying the 4T is coupled with a peculiar, backward-looking vision for national transformation; a ‘retro-formation’ in the making.     

“It’s not just talk”: ideas,discourse, and the prospects for transformational change in a homogenous nation-state

ABSTRACT

Despite decades of large-scale immigration, systemic and institutionalized racism and ethnonationalism remain very strong in South Korea. One reason is obvious: South Korea is the quintessential homogeneous nation-state. Many observers, in fact, believe that it is one of the few societies in the world that is naturally homogenous. For this and other reasons, the prospect that South Korea can or will transform from homogenous nation-state to multicultural society is generally given very short shrift. I argue, however, that small but extremely significant steps toward a multicultural society have already been made and that the key reason is due to the introduction of ‘multiculturalism’ as an idea and discourse in Korean society. While a focus on ideas/discourse is hardly new, this paper contends that it has been seriously underappreciated, particularly in analyses of South Korea, as a cause of institutional stability on the one hand, and of institutional change and transformation, on the other hand.     

Introduction: social movements and forums in times of authoritarian capitalism

ABSTRACT

On all continents the enormity of the violence and danger of the times gives rise to multiple new practices of struggle and to conceptual innovations, which seek to serve justice, solidarity, and dignity for all. We explore the possibilities and different worlds intended in the main slogan of the World Social Forum ‘Another world is possible’. During its early years the World Social Forum was characterized by a fair amount of optimism. We know now that most of the high hopes of the movements have not been adequately materialized. The rise of authoritarian leaders and the nexus between capitalism and populism emerging in different parts of the world has created a new context for the attempts to create democratic futures. This collection presents and interrogates a variety of diagnoses of the present and of new strategies for transformative change that are emerging out of the forum process.     

Cultural administrators as creative workers: the case of public and non-governmental cultural institutions in St. Petersburg

ABSTRACT

Despite the increasing number of studies dedicated to creative professionals, there are still many topics that remain understudied. One such topic is the interconnection of professional labour and cultural institutions, which frame labour conditions. Furthermore, while much research has been devoted to the UK, other regions or global concerns have gained little attention. This article concerns creative professionals in post-Soviet Russia. It offers an overview of the field of cultural institutions in St. Petersburg in relation to the cultural administration and the professionals working for them. In particular, this study focuses on the public sector in Russian cultural production and the new non-state institutions founded by young entrepreneurs and activists, which have to struggle constantly for recognition and support from the city’s administration. Based on the fieldwork conducted in St. Petersburg between 2012 and 2015, the empirical study includes 26 in-depth interviews with cultural managers, employees of art centres, lofts, creative spaces, museums, and theatres. The research items highlighted here are concerned with the specificity of the newly established Russian institutional environment, framing creative labour in public and non-governmental cultural institutions. It discusses whether the post-socialist system presents a ‘luckier’ medium for a ‘good’ creative job than that of advanced capitalism.     

Nature and the international: towards a materialist understanding of societal multiplicity

ABSTRACT

The global environmental crisis requires a grasp of how human society interacts with nature, but also, simultaneously, how the world is divided into multiple societies. International Relations has a weak grasp of nature treating it as external to the international – an ‘environment’ to be managed – while environmentalism has a planetary epistemology that occludes the significance of the international. How to break this impasse? While neither Geopolitics nor ‘new materialism’ capture the complex conjuncture of socio-natural and inter-societal dynamics, I argue that Justin Rosenberg’s theorization of the international as ‘the consequences of societal multiplicity’ provides a theoretical opening. If a materialist notion of societal is adopted, ‘societal multiplicity’ allows human-natural and international dynamics to be grasped together. Thus, climate change is not a problem arising exogenously to the international, but something emerging through international dynamics, reciprocally affecting the units, structure and processes of the international system itself.     

The rise of soft capitalism

Abstract

The worlds of academe and capitalism are moving ever closer together as the cultural value attributed to theory by managers increases. This paper documents this process and, at the same time, provides a critique of it. Accordingly, the paper is in three parts. The first part shows how the discursive make‐up of academe and capitalism have become remarkably similar. The second part of the paper then documents the rise of a ‘soft capitalism’ based upon new discourses of management, which, at the same time, provides powerful technology of justification. The final part of the paper shows that the new discourses of management have a hard edge which impoverishes its practices but may also allow the space for other social models to grow.     

The capitalist metabolism: an unachieved subsumption of life under the value-form

Abstract

This article views capitalism not only as a mode of production, but also as a mediation of the reproduction of life (human and non-human), following the concept of ‘social metabolism’ that Marx employs to analyze the interaction between the individuals composing a society and their natural environment. Insofar as the ‘value-form’ is the distinctive social relation of capitalism, it appears necessary to ask whether the metabolic process of reproduction can be fully subsumed under this form. Marx takes for granted the idea that the reproduction of labor-power consists only in the consumption of commodities resulting from abstract labor, thus omitting the appropriation of unpaid domestic work, mostly performed by women. Feminist criticism clarifies how capitalism always depends on some reproductive work being appropriated for the accumulation of surplus-value without being integrated in the value-form. Following Jason W. Moore, I attempt to indicate that the same logic is at work for the reproduction of non-human life under the capitalist value-form, thus contradicting the sustainable reproduction of its own natural conditions. These two limitations of the capitalist subsumption of life open a new space for an expanded critique of capitalism, which goes beyond the exploitation of waged work by reflecting upon the concerns of feminist and ecological struggles.     

Deciphering the modern Janus: societal multiplicity and nation-formation

ABSTRACT

How to theorize the nation’s Janus-like form, its simultaneous modernity and antiquity? This paper provides an original answer to this longstanding question. It argues that nations arise from the interaction of ‘societal multiplicity’ and the expansionist tendency of historical capitalism. The emergence of capitalism super-adds a modern inflection to the inherently relational process of collective identity formation by generating modern sovereignty as an abstract form of rule. Crucially however, just like its emergence, capitalism’s expansion also refracts through societal multiplicity. Non-capitalist societies are therefore pressured into ‘nationalist’ projects of emulative self-preservation in which the nation’s political form (i.e. the sovereign state) is forged before its sociological content (i.e. primitive accumulation). Thus, the original site of this process, France, produced the modular nation-form that unlike Britain’s imperial nationhood could be globalized. The paper therefore shows that IR’s premise of multiplicity may be the key to one of social sciences’ most enduring puzzles.     

‘Systemic thinking’, ‘regenerative culture’, and new forms of prefigurative politics: challenges for the global left

ABSTRACT

One of the aspects of the current crisis of the Left is an ‘epistemological blindness’ that prevents it from identifying opportunities for its own renewal. That includes the dismissal of the contribution of prefigurative forms of collective action which do not fit its institutionalized orthodoxies. Their most significant expression is a range of grassroots initiatives based on ‘systemic thinking’ and aimed at promoting a ‘regenerative culture’. It includes non-capitalist economic initiatives, such as those of the transition movement, social and solidarity economy and the Global Ecovillage Network, as well as of the temporary communities created by Occupy Wall Street movement and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. They regard social polarization, patriarchy, and the crisis of democracy as interconnected dimensions of a civilizational dysfunction that asks for whole-systems solutions. Such approach, if adopted by the Left, may contribute to its renewal and political strengthening.     

Young people and the gendered and aesthetic dimensions of ‘enterprise’: stories from a ‘Rust Belt’ city

ABSTRACT

In the ‘Rust Belt’ city of Geelong in Victoria, Australia, discourses of young people’s enterprise and innovation provide a counter-narrative to the prevailing material and symbolic consequences of industrial decline, job losses, and the growing insecurity of employment and income. GT Magazine is a weekly, large circulation magazine in Geelong with a significant focus on the activities and aspirations of enterprising young people. In this paper, we examine, by utilising techniques of content analysis and discourse analysis, the particular ways in which young people’s innovation and enterprise are framed and enacted in GT Magazine. Our analysis reveals that ‘youth’ and ‘enterprise’ are, in GT Magazine, given an embodied form that is powerfully marked by aestheticised, normalised enactments of gender, class and race. In doing this work, we make productive contributions to three key themes in contemporary youth studies: new work orders and the youthful self as enterprise; the gendered and aesthetic dimensions of affective labour in these new work orders; and the emerging spatial turn to examine young people's embodied, place-based experiences of employment and enterprise. We seek to make problematic the sense that solutions to multiple disruptions and crises in capitalism and the environment are to be found in young people’s enterprise. Particularly when that enterprise is given form in ways that are aestheticised, gendered, classed, individualised and responsibilised.     

Trade unions and climate politics: prisoners of neoliberalism or swords of climate justice?

ABSTRACT

Contemporary climate change politics, dominated by neoliberal and ecological modernization framings, has reached an impasse. This article utilizes literature on the environment and employment relations to interrogate the largely neglected field of trade union activities on climate change. The main findings are that some trade union climate representatives (‘green representatives’) in some sectors have made an independent contribution to climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in the workplace. There is evidence of trade unions instigating transformation change and expanding climate awareness in the workplace. The principal conclusions are that workers have the interest and collective capacity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to address the differential impacts of climate and climate policy, and to coalesce workers to tackle climate change. The recent experience of UK trade unions suggests they have a vital role to play as climate actors and, suitably reconfigured, the capability to renew their role in the twenty-first century.     

Capital has an Internationale and it is going fascist: time for an international of the global popular classes

ABSTRACT

Global capitalism is approaching a general crisis of capitalist rule. It is urgent to renovate a popular revolutionary project and refound the state if we are to combat the onslaught of the neo-fascist right. Amin’s call for a new Internationale is a timely move in that direction, notwithstanding the many challenges of organizing such an Internationale. Developing an umbrella program must engage political and theoretical debate on the nature of the new global capitalism, learn from the failures of Syriza in Greece and the Pink Tide in Latin America, and reconceive the three-way relationship between states, parties, and social movements. The downward mobility and destabilization of working classes in the former First World and the destruction of the old labor aristocracies provides the recruiting grounds for 21st century fascism but also new opportunities for transnational North-South solidarities. A new Internationale must identify and prioritize the class antagonisms within and across countries and regions over core-periphery or Global North-South contradictions.     

Mothers behaving badly: chaotic hedonism and the crisis of neoliberal social reproduction

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the significance of the plethora of representations of mothers ‘behaving badly’ in contemporary anglophone media texts, including the films Bad Moms, Fun Mom Dinner and Bad Mom’s Christmas, the book and online cartoons Hurrah for Gin and the recent TV comedy dramas Motherland, The Let Down and Catastrophe. All these media texts include representations of, first, mothers in the midst of highly chaotic everyday spaces where any smooth routine of domesticity is conspicuous by its absence; and second, mothers behaving hedonistically, usually through drinking and partying, behaviour that is more conventionally associated with men or women without children. After identifying the social type of the mother behaving badly (MBB), the article locates and analyses it in relation to several different social and cultural contexts. These contexts are: a neoliberal crisis in social reproduction marked by inequality and overwork; the continual if contested role of women as ‘foundation parents’; and the negotiation of longer-term discourses of female hedonism. The title gestures towards a popular British sitcom of the 1990s, Men Behaving Badly, which popularized the idea of the ‘new lad’; and this article suggests that the new lad’s counterpart, the ladette, is mutating into the mother behaving badly, or the ‘lad mom’. Asking what work this figure does now, in a later neoliberal context, it argues that the mother behaving badly is simultaneously indicative of a widening and liberating range of maternal subject positions and symptomatic of a profound contemporary crisis in social reproduction. By focusing on the classed and racialised dynamics of the MBB – by examining who exactly is permitted to be hedonistic, and how – and by considering the MBB’s limited and partial imagining of progressive social change, the article concludes by emphasizing the urgency of creating more connections between such discourses and ‘parents behaving politically’.