To date, much of the work on social work, ethics and technology has been focused on clinical social work and micromorality-the ethical practices of the worker and their clients in one-on-one or ...therapeutic group interactions. In contrast, this article foregrounds social workers engaged in community work and the ethical implications at a macromoral level. Central to community-based social work, also known as social development work, is the principle of participation. In observing the ways e-technology is affecting community participation, the focus is upon communicative and social technologies, rather than assistive technologies, or technology enabled assessment. The article explores the intersection of these three themes of community participation, technology, and ethics to examine the implications for social workers located in the complex context of community work.
Drawing from the work of Deleuze and Guattari, we experimentally chart a cartography of a peculiar interview (an “off-topic” and “dissident” interview that disrupts the agenda of the interviewer). In ...this article, we aim to traverse the micropolitics of the interview, the entangled relations of power and resistance. We intentionally chart the intensive topography of the peculiar and re-present what was once missed (or passed over). Thinking with theory rather than method, we have used Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualization of social machines, deterritorialization, and desire, to interrogate and experiment with the dissident interview. Performed as a nine-movement guerrilla encounter, the peculiarities of the interview are re-presented as unconventional guerrilla tactics that deterritorialize and disrupt the interview. Our experimentation surfaced some of the ways an interview can be despotic, stifling affective production. However, a Deleuzio-Guattarian war machine prevented the capture and appropriation of the interview and produced a new creative machine.
While codes of ethical conduct are important, they do not always fit neatly in the organic community settings in which some workers engage. Professional standards from accrediting bodies are easy to ...sign up to, yet much more difficult to put into practice. Drawing upon community connection practice in recovery-oriented mental health work, this article names the professional boundary tensions peculiar to less structured fields of engagement. We suggest that for workers in these fields, there has been a disconnection between the theory, the experience, and the public discourse of professional boundaries. We argue that such disconnection can create uncertainty, anxiety, and secrecy, creating exactly those cultures we wish to avoid. Ultimately this leads to greater harm for vulnerable individuals, as well as the workers and organisations that serve them. The alternative is to engage in what we name a "risky conversation," to expose this disconnect and engender a new type of professionalism.
This article examines the rich lived experience of members of a 20-year-old workers' cooperative in Brisbane, Australia - primarily made up of members who have intellectual disabilities - and reveals ...the need for significant social support to ensure people can access meaningful work. Drawing on the findings of our case-study research conducted with the Nundah Community Enterprise Cooperative, we argue that cooperatives can be a vital contributor in creating meaningful work for people with disabilities. Importantly, our case study strengthens the case that meaningful employment can be created and supported by such a holistic cooperative model, which also includes a role for meso-level community organisations. Overall, the case study is really the story of what cooperative solidarity and mutuality can achieve as one way of overcoming the social distress or social injury of not having meaningful work.
In this paper it is argued that work on transformative learning has been predicated on assumptions about agency on the part of both teacher and student and suggests an idealised learning environment. ...While recognising the significance of transformational learning the paper explores what it describes as the shadow side of transformational work, utilising feedback from students in a postgraduate course. The paper begins with a brief overview of transformational education. The changing context of transformational learning is then outlined. The paper considers issues of power, resistance and pain in transformational experiences, before suggesting one possible response to these issues.
Abstract
This article introduces a special issue of the Community Development Journal designed to explore aspects of community development through an explicitly ethical lens. Arguing for a broad ...understanding of ethics as inextricably linked to practice and politics, it introduces the concept of ‘ethics work’ to capture the cognitive and emotional efforts community development workers expend to identify and handle matters of responsibilities, rights, harms, and benefits. Drawing inspiration and illustrations from contributions to the special issue, the article identifies ethical questions and concerns at three inter-related levels: micro (everyday relationships and interactions), meso (strategies for community development engagement and action), and macro (distribution of power and resources). After examining case examples of micro- and meso-ethical encounters, the article moves to consideration of macro-ethical questions linked to the political context of community development as a movement or project. The importance of interrogating the contradictory ideologies underpinning community development is stressed, ensuring the ethical lens is broad and versatile enough for practitioners to view their work reflexively with reference to postcolonial, postmodern, and posthuman perspectives. The article concludes with a call for a situated ethics of eco-social justice, seeing ethics as embedded in everyday practice while located in political and ecological contexts.
The fringe lending sector in Australia has experienced considerable growth over the last decade. However, very little is known about the profile of the typical borrower or the typical lender - though ...much is assumed about the morality and motivation of both. Drawing upon findings from a pilot study conducted in Queensland during 2008-2009, we discuss the changing landscape of fringe lending in Australia before exploring how borrowers and lenders construct their respective motivations and actions. We conclude that the use of fringe lenders by low-income Australians provides useful insights into the growth of fringe lending in Australia and the limitations of policy responses that are trapped in the regulation versus non-regulation debate. We suggest that a more appropriate response must also consider the wider context of insufficient incomes to meet increased living costs. The policy debate needs to ensure that it acknowledges the complex demand and supply reasons for increasing demand for short term credit. The debate also needs to recognise that, in the absence of alternatives, fringe lending products will remain a prominent aspect of the financial management strategies of Australians living on low incomes.
Abstract
This article reports upon the efforts of three social work/social science academics in partnership with social and community practitioners, at radicalising community development (CD) within ...social work. The project was motivated by painful political events and processes unfolding around the world in 2017 and led to the design of a participatory action research approach with thirty-three practitioners. Engaging in several cycles of research (pre- and post questionnaires, observation, focus groups and interviews) and action learning (a popular education knowledge exchange day, a community of practice day and prototyping new projects) several new initiatives were implemented, including the formation of a new Popular Education Network. Reflections and discussion consider the implications of radicalising CD within social worker practice through combining education, organising and linking to progressive social movements. The article overall makes the case that popular education could be a crucial element in enabling the radicalisation of CD within social work.
People who have been diagnosed with serious mental illness have a long history of confinement, social stigma and marginalisation that has constrained their participation in society. Drawing upon the ...work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, we have used the concepts of: assemblages, major and minor and deterritorialisation to critically analyse two pervasive and ‘taken‐for‐granted’ assemblages in mental health: recovery (including clinical recovery, social recovery and recovery‐oriented practice) and social inclusion. Our analysis explores how dominant and oppressive forces have been entangled with liberating and transformative forces throughout both of these assemblages – with dominant forces engaging in ongoing processes of capture and control, and transformative forces resisting and avoiding capture. In pursuit of social transformation for people categorised with serious mental illness, deterritorialisation is posited as a potential way forward. To have transformation in the lives of mental health service users, we present the possibility that ongoing, disruptive movements of deterritorialisation can unsettle majoritarian practices of capture and control – producing liberating lines of flight.
This paper brings together the impact of two major changes in higher education: the massification of the higher education system and the accompanying increase in international student mobility. ...Utilising collective narrative practice (CNP) as a classroom intervention, this research demonstrates a movement from teacher-centred and student-centred pedagogy to community-centred pedagogy. In doing so, the project demonstrates ways students can overcome a sense of isolation through the telling and receiving of story. In this way, it encourages students to enact community in the classroom and shift the identity of fellow students from bearers of problems to bearers of culture. The paper shares student narratives and the responses to these narratives as a means of creating unity in diversity.
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