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The return of the political in social work
Author(s) -
Gray Mel,
Webb Stephen A.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
international journal of social welfare
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1468-2397
pISSN - 1369-6866
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2397.2008.00626.x
Subject(s) - transformative learning , assertion , politics , sociology , power (physics) , work (physics) , epistemology , social work , social change , focus (optics) , social science , political science , law , pedagogy , philosophy , computer science , mechanical engineering , physics , quantum mechanics , programming language , engineering , optics
This article is a follow‐up to our article ‘Revisiting social work as art’ and in part a response to Karen Healy's reply [both published in IJSW 17(2)]. It is, however, also a significant extension of this material since it engages with more general concerns about the critical project that is intrinsic to social work. Social work is not just about self‐foundation based on knowledge, values and skills formation, but also about self‐assertion. Crucially, it is through this notion of self‐assertion that social work can be best understood as an agent of change. This transformative aspect of social work is our central focus. We are not concerned with structural conditions of power and domination but with theorising what a transformative politics would look like for social work using the lens of the French political philosopher Alain Badiou as a conceptual medium for permitting the return of the political for social work.