Social Work and Social Justice in Northern Ireland: Towards a New Occupational Space

Correspondence to: Dr John Pinkerton, School of Social Work, Queens University Belfast, 7 Lennoxvale, Belfast BT9 5BY, Northern Ireland. E-mail j.pinkerton{at}qub.ac.uk Summary This article considers the concept of social justice by referenceto the experience of social work in Northern Ireland duringthe past forty years of communal, paramilitary and state violence.It notes the contested nature of the concept and its chequeredhistory within the professional ideology of social work generallyand its absence as a significant explanatory and motivationalconcept for social workers in Northern Ireland to date. It arguesthat in the emerging post-conflict situation social work asa profession needs to operationalize a view of social justicethat acknowledges social and cultural diversity in order toredefine the profession itself and direct its relationship toboth the state and civil society.