The Social Work and the More-than-human Special Interest Group (MTH SIG) brings together transnational scholars working on the ways in which the more-than-human, broadly defined, challenges human-focused social work research, education and practice. In different ways the Covid-19 pandemic, environmental emergency and human-made technologies each generate political and economic instabilities that amplify existing inequalities between humans, but also between humans and non-human life. These events and phenomena draw attention to the potential harms of the human exceptionalism embedded in modern social and political thought, and they evoke new philosophical questions that challenge state-anchored professional social work to imagine beyond the traditional scope of our research and practice.
Our guiding questions include:
Please get in touch if you have questions, ideas for collaboration, or if you would like to be added to our SIG email list.
SIG Co-Convenors:
Dr Tina Wilson
Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, Faculty of Arts
The University of British Columbia Canada
tina.wilson@ubc.ca
Dr Heather Lynch
Senior Lecturer, MSc (Social Work) Programme Lead
Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland, United Kingdom
heather.lynch@gcu.ac.uk
2024/2025 Theme: More-Than-Human Ethics for Social Work
The Social Work and the More-Than-Human Special Interest Group organizing theme for 2024-2025 is more-than-human ethics.
Social work’s dominant ethical codes draw on human rights (based on a conception of humans as ends in themselves) and social justice (with a focus on distribution of goods amongst humans). This premise was adopted as it challenged exploitative human hierarchies and created the basis for establishing the welfare structures through which contemporary social work developed. Post- or more-than-human thought that decentres humanity demands consideration of non-human beings. This proposition calls for a revolutionary shift that generates soul-searching ethical dilemmas for professional social work. While more-than-human thought seeks to elevate marginal positions and locate human life in the context of all life, some scholars (Hornborg, 2021) argue that affording agency to non-human actors risks overlooking, or excusing problematic human behaviour. This debate presents questions for social work. Is it possible to seek justice for those marginalised, if we cannot leverage their rights as humans over all else? What harms do we contribute to in the name of human wellbeing (Lynch 2019)? What is the human, or agential human freedom, in highly curated, mediated, dependent, and contingent worlds? How might more-than-human thought reconfigure our major guiding ethical anchors of rights, justice, and virtue?
We take up the enormity of the more-than-human ethical issues ahead for social work as our theme for 2024-2025. Our work this year includes a monthly reading group (starting September 2024), a co-hosted event with the Social Work Ethics Research Group (SWERG) SIG at ECSWR 2025 in March 2025, and a call for papers for a Special Issue of Ethics and Social Welfare on more-than-human ethics for social work.
Please contact either of the Co-conveners if you want to join our mailing list, participate in our activities, or chat about the Special Issue.
2023/2024 Theme: Social Work Geographies, Or, The Place/s Of Social Work
ECSWR 2024 SIG Event presentations
2022/2023 Theme: Michel Serres The Natural Contract: “What language do the things of the world speak, that we might come to an understanding with them, contractually?”
ECSWR 2023 SIG Event presentations (note: video quality is poor)
