Jessica H. Jönsson

Beyond Empowerment : Changing local communities

This article critically analyses empowerment projects in a local community in southern India and explores the shortcomings of development projects aimed at changing living conditions of marginalized people. It is argued that international social work should move beyond established empowerment theories and practices and include combating structural barriers in an emancipatory manner.

Social work beyond cultural otherisation

Globalisation, increasing inequalities and marginalisation create new challenges for social work as a global profession and research arena. The recent global socio-economic and structural transformations have reinforced otherisation of non-western peoples and the use of the old colonial discursive repertoire of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. This paper argues that culturalisation of social problems creates obstacles for the development of new methods and practices in social work.

Fishing for development: A question for social work

This study explores the consequences of the European Union’s fishing agreements with a number of African countries for individuals in local communities. The empirical results show that European fishing in African waters has destructive consequences for local fishing communities and leads to increasing migration from fishing communities to Europe, where immigrants are facing increasing discrimination. It is argued that social work should consider new global transformations and build global alliances in order to fight against structural inequalities and improve individual life chances.

International field training in social work education: beyond colonial divides

Abstract This paper examines the influence of and need for a critical and global-oriented social work education on students’ learning and developments in the context of international field training. The study uses mixed methods strategy of web survey, focus groups and document review of field reports. Participants in the study are social work students from social work programs in Norway and Sweden who have conducted their international field training in the Global South. The results of the study show that in order to obtain a critical and postcolonial understanding of global inequalities and the role of social work, students need to be truly prepared for international field training by critical and postcolonial knowledge, which will challenge many students’ West-centric perspectives and facilitate them by a self-reflective positioning throughout their field training. The imagination of traveling to and ‘learning about the others’ should be then replaced by a move beyond ‘us-and-them’ divides in line with the ethical principles and values of social work.

Revitalizing social work education through global and critical awareness: examples from three Scandinavian schools of social work

ABSTRACT Increasing globalisation, reorganisation of the Scandinavian welfare regimes and the awareness of increasing global roots of local social problems necessitated change in the curriculum of social work in three Scandinavian schools of social work in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Recent global transformations, increasing global inequalities, increasing forced migration and the emergence of glocal social problems make the traditional education and methods of social work ineffective and in some cases harmful for people in need of social work intervention. This article examines the need to provide critical, global and multilevel perspectives in social work education in order to prepare social work students for the increasing social problems with global roots. The article, which is based on cross-national collaborations in social work education between three Scandinavian countries, addresses global and critical components in theoretical courses, professional training and field practice in the social work education of the countries in question. It is argued that social work education should move beyond the old division of classical and international/intercultural toward including global and critical perspectives in an integrative manner in all programs.

Servants of a ‘sinking titanic’ or actors of change? Contested identities of social workers in Sweden

ABSTRACT Historically, social workers have been an integral part of a well-developed welfare state in Sweden. However, due to the neoliberal changes, which have seen the weakening of the support system for vulnerable groups and individuals, the traditional ‘solidary role’ of social workers has rapidly altered. This has created uncertainty and dilemmas for the identification of many social workers, who still perceive themselves as promoters of ‘welfare of the people’. This article dwells, therefore, on neoliberal transformations and the changing professional identity of practitioners. The study is based on a comprehensive empirical work of interviews with social workers. The results show a growing and widespread unease with new professional roles and functions of social workers as bureaucrats within a neoliberalised organisation of public social work. Some social workers still try to find creative and new ways of working in solidarity, while others, although critical, see adjustment to the new organisational frames as a way to continue their work. It is argued that social workers are not passive actors in the process of neoliberalisation of public social work in Sweden but could actively take different stances and choose their own identifications, in order to maintain the solidary role of social workers.

Book Review: Child Welfare Systems and Migrant Children: A Cross Country Study of Policies and Practice

Book review: Child Welfare Systems and Migrant Children : A Cross Country Study of Policies and Practice