Becoming-care: reframing care work as flesh work not body work

ABSTRACT

This paper highlights the central role of the flesh within care relationships and how this disrupts and progresses existing understandings of care work. It is argued here that care work is a connected and fluid assemblage of diverse and changeable factors and that this relationship is best understood as a form of flesh work. Seeing care work in this way allows the care relationship between the person being cared for and the carer/s to be seen as a process of becoming; framed here as becoming-care. To illustrate this, two examples of a care relationship taken from a previous project are presented and discussed from a deleuzoguattarian standpoint. In this way, care work is assessed and theorised at the ontological level, resulting in the formulation of an alternative way of seeing care work that perhaps better reflects its reality – where the flesh is vital.     

The work to make an experiment work

ABSTRACT

Contrary to its typical presentation in scientific publications as a certain and linear process, in reality, the experimental method, not least the design aspect of it, requires a great deal of trial-and-error and ad hoc decision-making on the part of the researchers. This uncertain and contingent aspect of research, although little known outside of the circle of experts, has important implications for our understanding of the nature of science and scientific findings.

This paper offers a backstage perspective to experiment design, where the uncertain and contingent nature of experimental research is at its starkest. It draws on insights from the sociological perspective of ethnomethodology through the auto-ethnographic first-hand experience of the first author's own social psychology experiments. Based on detailed lab notes and planning documents on how and why design changes were made, the analysis focuses on the evolution of the experiment design, particularly the researcher’s in situ practical reasoning for how to make the experiment work. From this, we show how ethno-methods shape experiment results and highlight the inseparability of social science experimentation from in situ practical reasoning.     

Researching social work: Doctoral work in the UK

This paper discusses some current issues in relation to doctoral studies in social work in the UK. It draws on recent research and other sources to illustrate that our knowledge about the scope and scale of such doctoral work is limited. However, developments within the discipline and the wider policy and institutional context of professional education suggest that research (in general) has an increasing profile. This trend, together with debates about focus and research approaches in social work, has implications for the possible extension of opportunities for doctoral studies. It is further suggested that 'professional doctorate' programmes or 'PhD by publication' routes may be more suited to the needs of doctoral students in social work, given different career paths relative to students in some other disciplines.     

Preparing social work students to work in culturally diverse settings

Social workers have been in the forefront of the debate surrounding multiculturalism and are delineating guidelines on how to appreciate, work with, and embrace cultural diversity. This paper presents a structured format for presenting multicultural material into a BSW field seminar course based on a three-point paradigm. It focuses on allowing the students to develop an awareness of their cultural identity while at the same time attempting to increase their awareness of other cultural and ethnic customs and values.     

Policy-practice in social work and social work education in Israel

Policy-practice is a form of social work intervention that is intended to influence social policy. It is linked to an understanding of the role of social workers which places the struggle for social justice at the forefront of social work activity. However, this form of social work intervention has remained on the sidelines of social work practice and education in most welfare states. This paper seeks to understand the role that policy-practice and social policy play, and have played, in social work and social work education in Israel. The findings indicate that, despite a growth in interest in the political role of social workers in Israel during the 1970s, policy-practice has remained a mode of practice adopted by a minority of members of the profession in Israel. An empirical study of the curriculums of the schools of social work in Israel indicates that this is the case for the study program in most of the schools. The reasons for this can be linked primarily to the overwhelming influence of American social work upon the development of the Israeli profession and to the process of liberalization and privatization of the Israeli welfare state in the last two decades.     

Reading social work

Abstract

This paper offers a brief preliminary report on our attempts to apply “close reading” a technique drawn from contemporary literary criticism to social work writing. Reading turns out to be very difficult -something we have had to re-learn but reveals ideological formations deeply embedded in social work texts. Hugh England's “Social Work as Art” is taken as a working example and a case is made saying that it is deeply androcentric. However, it is important to distinguish between text and author and to note that the book shares its androcentricism with many other social work texts and arguably with social work culture in general. (England 1986).     

Towards a cultural typology of European work values and work organisation

This is a first attempt to present a typology of work values and work organisation in Europe. The typology identifies four core cultures: traditional capitalist countries, southern Europe, the Scandinavian countries and the former communist regimes. Examples are drawn from three areas: a social‐historical context (societal) and two group related phenomena: the typical scandal and the social role of money. In addition, a paradigm is proposed, comparing and contrasting contemporary cultural models on work values.