Hi all. I'm studying social work and am preparing to do an honours thesis on potential relationships between anarchist ideas and social work practice. Particularly developmental social work practice*. Does anyone know any constructive work done in this area previously? I've had a look in academic databases but haven't found much; I know there's a book edited by Martin Gilbert about anarchism and social work hosted on the libcom library.
Not to bore you all with the details but my idea so far is to sketch out an anarchist understanding of social development (maybe referencing Proudhon's ideas about mutuality and progress, Kropotkin's mutual aid, etc) and then develop this understanding into either an ethical framework or a practice model for those working in the area.
I'm interested in hearing your thoughts about what I'm attempting to do, if you think there's any leads I should look into, etc. If you have any feedback on my thesis idea I'd be more than happy to hear that too!
* Developmental social work is about enacting social change that promotes the wellbeing and capabilities of whole populations. It's usually framed as social work that focuses on the development of entire communities, not just individuals. An example of developmental social work practice could be something like working in an NGO mobilising resources to try and improve women's literacy in a particularly deprived area. It's not just about providing immediate solutions to specific individual problems, but general social uplift.
I would look at the history
I would look at the history of Anarchism as a social movement that took part in labor, women's, and anti-colonial struggles. Some reading on this could be Anarchism and Anarcho-syndicalism in The Colonial and Post-Colonial World, Introduction to Anarcho-syndicalism by Selfed, Fighting For Ourselves by Solidarity Federation, Anarcho-syndicalism In The 20th Century by Vadim Damier, and Socialism, Anarchism, and Feminism by Carol Ehrlich.
Thank you for the
Thank you for the suggestions, I will definitely look into those.
I would look into the social
I would look into the social model of distress and the social model of disability as well as communities of care.
I've studied these a fair bit
I've studied these a fair bit as part of my course already but I'm always looking for more in depth reading on them, especially if it relates to anarchy! I'll have a deeper search on this, cheers
I don’t have an answer to
I don’t have an answer to your question but just want to say that I’d never heard of developmental social work until reading this. It sounds pretty cool. :) I hope more social work can take this direction.
At the same time, there is a problem I can see in it, at least based on your description (which is all I know about it, so correct me if I’m wrong). It sounds like the change would be coming by the agency of professional social workers, rather than getting people mobilized to change their own communities. I think this would be a tension with anarchism.
I hope it can be taken in
I hope it can be taken in that direction too! Your point about tension between professional social work and popular mobilisation is completely valid and you aren't the first to notice it. Social work as a vocation grew out of the actions of late nineteenth century reformers, like Jane Addams and Octavia Hill. These early social workers were much more like activists; they often directly agitated for their clients, participated in unionisation programs, and generally saw political activism towards the alleviation of poverty as an integral part of what they did.
With the rise of the post-war welfare state social work became professional, and the activist parts of what they did dropped off. They became part of the 'coordinator class', to use the Parecon term. There's a book called 'Unfaithful Angels' which is apparently about this but I haven't had a chance to read it.
Anyway. My hope is that by attempting to integrate anarchism and social work I can carve out a potential path forward for social workers working in this area, so they become less like social workers and more like activists. In the activist role, they wouldn't function as mere mediators for capital, but as actual instigators for popular change, along mutual aid/Proudhonian reciprocal/generally libertarian lines.
The main problem is funding... what government agency or big name NGO is willing to pay a salary to anarchist so they can do anarchist things? Still, there's plenty of room for 'sneak' anarchism, encouraging egalitarian mutual aid schemes without necessarily advocating explicitly for anarchy. This is one of the reasons I'm interested in Colin Ward -- he was interested in things like friendly societies, mutual medical funds, etc. Even though they weren't explicitly anarchist, they were positive developments that embodied a libertarian social ethic. Even if they didn't realise it. So a social worker could work, say, for a government agency interested in building up credit unions or something.
I am also a social work
I am also a social work student and anarchist. Are you studying in the UK? This article is good in that it lays out a brief syndicalist approach to radical social work in opposition to SWAN, a trotskyist SW group in the UK:
https://libcom.org/library/muting-swan-radical-alternative-trotskyist-social-work
Also, whilst perhaps not directly relevant to your subject, this academic article discusses the use of autonomist marxist concepts in social work theory:
https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/article/44/7/1682/1706598
Hi Sherbu-kteer, I'm not sure
Hi Sherbu-kteer,
I'm not sure if I'm on the right track, but what you describe Developmental Social Work, is pretty much analogous with what is frequently known (in the UK at least) as Community Development; 'Community Development' as a practice differs in approach from context to context, and has a shared history with formal Social Work (though for myself and many folk in the profession or formerly in the profession, they are are distinctly different precisely because of the lack of statutory power given over to CD workers as opposed to Social Workers, and the specific practice of engaging groups rather than individuals). As a practice it frequently gets elided with Social Work (and much of recent Social Work debates, especially among SWAN-types, are about 'recovering' the approach as it used to factor into Social Work training as recently as the 1980's), but it does have a distinction as a practice.
As you note about Social Work as a practice developing for 19thC reformers, Community Development (roughly speaking) come from the same place, but take a detour as a colonial practice in much of it's earlier, ameliorative mode.
Apologies for the late reply
Apologies for the late reply Ellitotr -- I am studying in the UK at present, but most of my study has been done in Australia and I'll be going back there shortly. I've read that article on SWAN, it actually inspired me to start thinking about syndicalism specifically as a way of transforming social work practice. I definitely hadn't considered it before. It is very UK-specific though, as there is no comparative organisation active in Australia as far as I'm aware (our radical left is very, very small).
I will have a read of that article, it sounds very interesting. Cheers!
Concedonulli, that does sound a lot like what I'm studying. Do you know of any good authors you'd recommend that write on this topic, radical or otherwise? Definitely interested in learning more.