Neoliberalisation,the social investment state and social work

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the challenges to social work evolving from two major discourses contributing to the common sense contextualising social work within the new spirit of capitalism and the governing of the soul. Beside neo-liberal ideas and values challenging social work values and the welfare state, the question is also about managerialism. To what extent is the social worker able to contribute to liberating, reflexive critique, or exert pastoral power? I have chosen to see how the idea of the social investment state may be linked to Rose’s and Foucault’s ideas about expanding governmentality and end my discussion by relating to some of the early writing on social work’s challenges in confronting ideas and practices interpreted as neoliberalisation moves.     

Europe,social exclusion and the identity of social work

This paper argues that the identity of social work as a form of professional practice within Europe is a timely matter for contemporary debate. Economic and political moves in Europe towards integration have created the possibility of establishing an identity which could both incorporate a range of diverse activities and also create a form of practice that is distinct. This article will address the emerging concept of social exclusion as a potential focus for social work professional practice in a changing global setting. It will be argued that the concept is one that can incorporate the broad range of practice in social work in a manner that could have similar meaning for all the different practitioners involved.     

Modelling free social spaces and the diffusion of social mobilization

Free social spaces have long been emphasized in the social movement literature. Under names such as safe spaces, social havens, and counterpublics, they have been characterized as protective shelters against prevailing hegemonic ideologies and as hubs for the diffusion of ideas and ideologies. However, the vast literature on these spaces has predominantly focused on internal dynamics and processes, thus neglecting how they relate to the diffusion of collective mobilization. Inspired by formal modeling in collective action research, we develop a network model to investigate how the structural properties of free social spaces impact the diffusion of collective mobilization. Our results show that the assumption of clustering is enough for structural effects to emerge, and that clustering furthermore interacts synergistically with political deviance. This indicates that it is not only internal dynamics that play a role in the relevance of free social spaces for collective action. Our approach also illustrates how formal modeling can deepen our understanding of diffusion processes in collective mobilizations through analysis of emergent structural effects.     

Rediscovering the social question

Neoliberal policies not only privatise formerly public services but also focus one-sidedly on discourses of individual autonomy and responsibility. This makes it difficult to raise ‘the social question’ (the question what constitutes social bonds) publicly since market principles are presented as allowing no alternatives. Social work owes its professional origins however to a shift from early capitalist individualism to policies recognising the need for social reconstruction and cohesion. It was mandated to reconcile the key principles of modernity, personal freedom and equality, although its methodology, often corresponding with social policy regimes, interpreted this mandate variably. Attempts in current social work to adjust to the cancellation of the social question through techniques of ‘activation’ and individualised care further the crisis of the project of modernity which manifests itself in a split between heightened public control measures and privatised concerns for ‘care’, thereby altering its core identity. Reflections on social work's historical position within varying political contexts help to promote a renewed critical examination of the profession's political role and highlight the need to turn interventions at the personal level into occasions that affirm social citizenship, ensure rights and promote social equality.     

Essentialism and the social

In this paper I show that two senses are often assigned to essences in frameworks that award them a significant ontological status. There is both a defining sense and a more concrete‐explanatory sense. Once this distinction is recognized, competing forms of essentialism can be differentiated and their implications more easily explored. As an example of work where the defining and the concrete‐explanatory senses of essence are tied closely together I consider the essentialism outlined by Rom Harré as part of his analysis of the practices of natural scientists. As an illustration of a position where the two senses are de‐coupled and priority given to the defining sense I examine the essentialism Charles Peirce develops in his mature account of natural classes. I show that arguments concerning the scope of essentialism and its relevance for the study of social phenomena depend heavily on the sense of essence prioritized. The focus on these two senses of essence facilitates a better understanding of the forms of essentialism defended by Harré and Peirce and helps identify the challenges contemporary realists face as they seek to defend an essentialism that applies to the social.     

Transforming the social order: The role of the university in social change

The contemporary multicultural and secular university in the United States is experiencing an array of value transitions as well as ideological contradictions. The present dilemmas and challenges confronting the academy appear to emanate from the preoccupation with new schools of explanation and interpretation and from arbitrarily defined appropriate speech. In the social sciences and in the humanities, value neutrality and traditional constructs are viewed as strategies for concealing and promoting anachronistic standards of conduct. Faculty interviewed express concern and skepticism about the direction and future of the American university in a postindustrial and a postmodernistic era. Many perceive the university as not assuming a leading role in constructive social change. This results from its absorption with political symbols and selectively perceived meanings of varied cultural interests. Some faculty sense a major transformation in the way the university and its culture are produced and arranged. The social sciences and humanities have the potential for coping with the current paradoxes.This paper is a revision of the presidential address delivered in Boston at the 1993 annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society.     

Refugee resettlement,social media and the social organization of difference

Social media platforms allow refugees separated by distance to share information, provide support and exchange resources across borders. This connection has the potential to transform resettlement experiences as people maintain significant and ongoing relationships with transnational networks. Yet, since refugee resettlement programmes generally only scale up to the national imagination, integration remains a normative framework in most policy spheres. This article presents a 12‐month digital ethnography of 15 refugees settled in New Zealand with a view to examining their transnational practices of social media and its influence on integration and belonging. Drawing on a conceptual framework based on the social organization of difference, it contains a discussion on how online global networks increasingly inform the domains of encounters, representations and configurations. The role of social media for refugee resettlement futures and its implications for integration at times of rapid political, technological and social change concludes the article.     

Driving and Symbolic Interaction1

Although it is a prominent feature of modern experience, driving has received little attention from sociologists. Yet social interaction between motorists is an integral part of the traffic situation. This paper explores its bases and some of its typical dynamics. Other sociologically relevant aspects of driving are delineated and the issue of how driving may influence modern culture is addressed.     

The contribution of the intervention in social networks and community social work at the local level to social and human development

ABSTRACT

The primary task of community social work is building social networks by reinforcing people's resources and those of the different environmental and social contexts from three dimensions: personal development, social development and organisational development. The new information technologies today establish a relationship of communication with local communities and citizens that promotes proximity to social networks. Social intervention is supported by a set of methods from human geography that can be used as tools to create maps of the territory and the networks for planning, diagnosing and classifying the management of community network intervention. In this discussion we set out to analyse the contribution of the intervention in social networks as a means of achieving a new configuration of social networks at the local level. This information is obtained from semi-structured interviews with social workers and other professionals in the social sphere in municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants in the Madrid region (Spain). The research results show that intervention in social networks locally multiplies the opportunities to enhance the quality of people's social relationships, thus expanding their social support by strengthening their bonds, their personal network and support systems; secondly, it increases empowerment to facilitate a type of intervention to strengthen human potential and to gain autonomy and full citizenship.     

Complexity and the social world

While advocating the adoption of qualitative approaches to evaluation, it is important to reflect on the practice. This paper draws on the work of a diversionary project to involve young people at risk in leisure and sporting activities using one to one mentors. The approach adopted was one that was designed to address potentially sensitive issues and place the experience of the key players central to the enquiry. Hence, the intention was that the young people and their mentors should be treated as knowers and actors rather than the objects of the research. The approach discussed here stops short of treating them as 'partners' in the research as discussed previously in this journal, arguing instead for an approach in which skilled researchers actively engage all parties. Such an approach can offer insights inaccessible to more conventional evaluation techniques.     

Permissions and the social context

By focusing on formal intensive interview research, this essay explores how the sociohistorical context influences the routine procedures by which sociologists obtained permission to conduct their studies. We examine the permissions process within the specific historical context of the 1950s and contrast it with contemporary issues of informed consent. The need for a more theoretical and situational understanding of permissions is identified, both in regard to human—subjects regulations and social control. Her most recent books areMadwives: Schizophrenic Women in the 1950s (Rutgers University Press, 1987) andGender Issues in Field Research (Sage, 1988). She has written extensively in the fields of mental illness and social control. Her current research focuses on the sociological analysis of art and culture as well as the processes of doing and writing fieldwork. She is also the co-managing editor of theMid-American Review of Sociology.     

Citizenship on the margins: Citizenship,social work and social action

Drawing on a critical synthesis of the two main citizenship traditions, so as to construct citizenship as both a status and a practice, linked through the notion of human agency, the article explores citizenship's exclusionary and inclusionary sides within both a national and international framework. Within a national framework, the implications of citizenship's ‘false universalism’ are explored as the basis for a recasting of citizenship in a way that addresses the tension between universalism and particularity or difference. Within an international framework, a human rights perspective is introduced as a means of challenging citizenship's exclusion of nation state outsiders, most notably immigrants and asylum-seekers. This approach draws upon a multi-tiered conceptualisation of citizenship stretching from the local through to the global.

Some implications for social work practice and policy are then discussed in relation to support for active citizenship in deprived communities and anti-poverty action in which poor people themselves have a voice. This includes a brief consideration of political exclusion; the potential of self-help groups and community social work and development work; and user-involvement. The article concludes that citizenship offers social work a framework that embraces anti-poverty work, principles of partnership and anti-discriminatory practice and an inclusionary stance.     

Inequality in the social services

This article analyzes national data on the institutionalized population and shows the different patterns for white and nonwhite children and adults. It considers and refutes explanations based on differential problems and needs and explores organizational mechanisms. It also marshals evidence to show how such proxies as race and class are employed by organizations to induce a rationing of diagnostic categories and of services. The outcome is downward drift, the propelling of minority and poor persons into failure-reinforcing institutions. Directions for change are indicated.