Relational Solidarity and Social Work. Intersectional and Decolonial Perspectives for Social Work Research and Practice

 

Thomas Geisen

 

Recently, research on solidarity emerges in various fields of Social Work, particularly in areas related to social movements. Examples include urban gardening and climate change activism, as well as post- and decolonial Social Work. From an international perspective, solidarity is often associated with indigenous concepts of mutual support, such as the South African concept of Ubuntu. Although solidarity is acknowledged as a normative principle in Social Work practice, the empirical research on solidarity in Social Work remains on the margins of the discipline. More often, empirical research on normative orientations and practices that bring people together and contribute to the development of a sense of shared identity and mutual belonging focuses on different terms and concepts, such as support, reciprocity, recognition, and obligations. However, these concepts differ widely from a relational understanding of solidarity. They can best be understood as elements of a more comprehensive understanding of a mutual practice to ‘stand-up-for-each-other’ – an everyday life description of solidarity. Against this background, the presentation will argue that, for more complex approaches in empirical Social Work research based on intersectional and decolonial perspectives, the concept of relational solidarity can contribute epistemologically and methodologically to a better understanding of social work theory and practice. This can happen by bringing together different individual perspectives positioned in different social, cultural, and professional/economic communities of practice and learning, as well as by analyzing them as becoming and being part of specific communities and (transnational) societies. Finally, relational solidarity is a multilayered, complex concept that offers the opportunity to combine different areas and dimensions with different relational perspectives and will thus offer new perspectives for Social Work research.

 

Dr. Thomas Geisen is Professor for Workplace Integration and Disability Management at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW, School of Social Work, in Olten. He has widely been published in the fields of work, migration, and Social Work, and has an outstanding record of presentations at international conferences and as an invited speaker. Geisen is co-founder of the EASWR Special Interest Group SIG “Solidarity and Social Work” which want to promote empirical research on relational solidarity. He is convinced that empirical solidarity research contributes to establishing a new, relational perspective on Social Work practice by better understanding joint action and support structures of people in different social contexts and in intersectional perspectives. Contact: thomas.geisen@fhnw.ch; further information: www.fhnw.ch/de/personen/thomas-geisen

Links: 

https://solidarity-research.ch/conference/

https://www.eswra.org/sig_page_single.php?i=37

https://solidarity-research.ch/

POWER POINT PRESENTATION

Arts-based Research in Social Work

Abstract:

This seminar will describe the embodied relational aesthetic turn and its contribution to social work research specifically. Outlining how arts can capture the triangle between the subjective experience of the individual, the relational context, and the physical socio- cultural context or world of the research participant. It will outline the interrelationship between subjective and objective knowledge stressors, and recourses, as caught spatially in the arts in the relationship between figure and background, as well as meaning levels as expressed in symbols, enabling to "re-search" for the experiences of participants outside of the limitations of professional abstractions.

Most importantly, this seminar will outline three practical structured arts-based methods that can be used in research with individuals, families, groups, and communities (creative genograms, conflicted fish, and transforming images to integrate stress and coping). Participants will be able to apply the theory but also the methods to their own research concerns.

Relevant publications of the presenter and others will be utilized as examples of the above theories and methods.

Abstract

Throughout Europe the most damaging consequences of the coronavirus have fallen disproportionately on older work. This seminar will explore the intersection between care homes, human rights, and social work. It will be delivered by members of the European Network for Gerontological Social Work using a recently published article in the European Journal of Social Work as a platform for discussion. The paper adopted the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights to explore deaths, and related harms, and identify human rights violations relating to the pandemic in homes from seven European countries (between March and December 2020).

Based on the findings, the authors - members of the SIG - call for an urgent re-examination of the role of social work in relationship to care homes and the importance of (re)engaging with human rights issues for care home residents and their families. This seminar will take this issue forward by firstly presenting the key findings of the paper (updated from Dec 2020) and then considering three ‘country case studies’ which will explore different social work responses to protecting the rights and wellbeing of older people in care homes during, and post, the pandemic. There will be opportunities for Q and A. The seminar will conclude with a focused discussion abou what SIG members can do, post the pandemic, to ignite greater engagement with care homes by social workers & their employers, what the social work role could achieve and how social work can address human rights issues.

Abstract

This session is aimed particularly at those who are new to writing for journal publication, those who need some revision, and those who can share useful experiences of this. Marcin Boryczko, Liz Frost, Lars Uggerhøj, Ozan Selçuk

Abstract

What do fish, tattoos, gingerbread figures, and photos have in common? What will happen if we throw research into this strange mix? The positivist tradition will sigh and frown. The social constructivists and pragmatists will clap their hands with glee, saying: We work with people, marginalised people, functionally illiterate people, o yes, and children. We really want to include them as research participants and help them to voice their narratives in the best way possible. We want to connect with participants and co-construct knowledge. We want to follow creative avenues to knowing and understanding. In this seminar we will talk about how to enrich interviews with body maps, and timelines. We will focus on the value of cartoons, photovoice and photo elicitation. And then the fish.

Prof Mariette van der Merwe, Compres research unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, North-West University, South Africa

Reading list
Visual data collection strategies

Abstract

This workshop will draw on findings of a global survey of social workers’ ethical challenges conducted by the Social Work Ethics Research Group with the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) in 2020 and a series of regional IFSW webinars in 2022. We will assess the use of the lessons learnt from rethinking ethics and values during the pandemic for facing other global challenges including the climate crisis, political conflicts and regional injustices. In particular, we will consider the importance of social workers taking holistic, ecological perspectives; promoting global connectedness; letting go of rigid professional boundaries; and adopting both more cosmopolitan and contextualised approaches to values and ethics. The workshop will comprise a presentation, followed by discussion of key questions in break out groups

Contributors: Sarah Banks & Lynne Cairns, Durham University, UK; Teresa Bertotti, University of Trento, Italy; Michelle Hei Yan Shum, Hong Kong Baptist University; Ana M. Sobočan, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; Kim Strom, University of North Carolina, USA; Jane Shears, IFSW Ethics Commissioner; María Jesús Úriz, Public University of Navarre, Spain

Social work educators are globally aware of the profession’s ethical “mandate” to engage with human rights and there are many policy documents, theoretical pieces of work etc. justifying the importance of this. However, in our experience, when facing the commitment to teach about human rights to social work students, social work educators tend to be unaware of how the same task is being approached by other courses and educators throughout the world. Moreover, due to its complexity and large scope, human rights can often feel like an overwhelming topic, difficult to translate into specific teaching activities, meaningful for social work students. However, despite local differences and the importance of contextualisation, there is a wealth of good teaching experiences on social work and human rights across Europe which social work educators teaching human rights could get inspired and benefit from. But this largely unexplored by social work research. 

In this online seminar, we would like to start a conversation within ESWRA about how human rights teaching is approached by social work educators across Europe and set some basis for promoting collaborative international research on the topic. For this, the seminar presenters will firstly share our experiences of teaching human rights and social work in the four European countries of Lithuania, England, Spain and Poland. Then, we will offer a space for interaction and discussion with the seminar participants, addressing both good and innovative teaching experiences in this field and contemporary key questions and challenges about teaching human rights to social work students. Our focus is on experience sharing and research networking on this topic.

Contributors: María Inés Martínez Herrero (International University of la Rioja, Spain), Eglė Šumskienė (University of Vilnius, Lithuania), Caroline Bald (University of Essex, UK), Emilio Gómez Ciriano (University of Castilla la Mancha, Spain), Marcin Boryczkoc (University of Gdansk, Poland).

for a substantial number of mostly young scientists, getting funding to conduct research has become a question of ‘to be or not to be’ . The stakes have increased significantly in a climate where not only the research itself but frequently job security depends on funding. International research teams are currently crucial for the development of the discipline of social work and for addressing the problems facing society today. At first it appears straightforward working in such teams, but it is frequently a tough and challenging process. To address these issues, we propose a discussion on the following topics:

1. Building international research teams: funding bodies, finding partners, creating settings etc.;
2. Research design in the international context of research: research tools and different languages;
3. Data analysis in multilingual research teams: qualitative research and meanings;
4. Communication: writing emails, the role of language, cultural differences.

Kris Clarke (Associate Professor/ University of Helsinki), Melinda Madew (Professor/ Protestant University of Applied Sciences Ludwigsburg), Liz Frost (Associate Professor/UWE Bristol) and Marcin Boryczko (Associate Professor/University of Gdańsk). 

Prof. Dr. Melinda Madew: How to Find Research Partners

Abstract

I will critically assess how social work writing has dealt with the colonial. The seminar will draw from an archival study of the development of social welfare in Singapore as a British colony, in the late colonial period from the end of Japanese occupation in 1945 through to final independence in 1965.

I will take two broad questions by way of illustration and include group exercises on this material. First, I will sketch a case study of late colonial, welfare-engaged women in Singapore, in a world of imperial privilege, welfare exceptionalism and late colonial fragmentation. Second, I will depict late colonial social work practice, taking adoption in the ethnically diverse community of Singapore as the anchor for this. If we are to grasp the colonial heritage, these lives and practices should neither be ignored nor assigned to a past that has irretrievably been left behind. I seek to avoid the assumption that all social workers need to know about colonialism is its horrors.

The seminar connects with the work of these SIGs: Social Work History and Research. Social Work Research on Migration And Asylum. Social Justice and Human Rights; and Social Work Workforce Research

Speaker

Dr Ian Shaw. Formerly S R Nathan Professor of Social Work, National University of Singapore, and Professor Emeritus, University of York.

Exercises - Welfare Engaged Women in a Late Colonial World - click here: https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:4aa84403-0156-3b7d-8563-ecc304b66560

Published Material

Shaw, I. 2023. ‘Approaching the colonial.’ British Journal of Social Work. 53 (1): 637-655

Shaw, I. 2022. ‘Late colonial women in a welfare world.’ Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/02185385.2022.2077817. Online first.

Late colonial social work practice. Qualitative Social Work, 22(4), 735–752, https://doi-org/10.1177/14733250221098602