Marion Brown

Collective Biography and the Question of Difference

This article engages with the research method of collective biography. We are particularly interested in what the question of difference brings to bear on the collective biography process. The aim of embodied writing in the collective biography process is “to tell the memory in such a way that it is vividly imaginable by others, such that those others can extend their own imaginable experience of being in the world through knowing the particularity of another” (Davies & Gannon). However, our own attempt to work with the method had us grappling with how to engage with a story that did not elicit understanding and identification but rather evoked, for some, a sense of incommensurable difference. By bringing together a poststructural concern with power relationships and a Deleuzian interest in engendering new synergies and possibilities, the article makes a theoretical contribution to new conceptual repertoires on the question of difference and its implications for feminist research.

Social work education in Canada, England and South Africa: A critical comparison of undergraduate programmes

Globalized labour mobility has led to questions regarding the degree to which social work education in one country can be applicable to practice in another. This paper examines social work education programmes and practice contexts in South Africa, England and Canada as examples through which to examine this question.

Educating for internationalizing social work practices

This special issue is an offspring of a collaborative project which began in 2008 among four universities in Canada, the United Kingdom and Denmark with a shared commitment to exploring issues of diversity, citizenship and internationalizing social work practices, through a CanadaEuropean Union funded exchange of students, practitioners and faculty. Over the ensuing three years, 42 students undertook practice placements in settings addressing the needs of marginalised and social excluded people in host countries, assessed by seasoned practitioners in the field. Student-led seminars and four international conferences were held in each site, bringing together a variety of students, faculty and practitioners for rich discussions and shared analyses of experiences. These discussions continue with further collaborations and new partnerships, and through the publication of this special edition of International Social Work. We are very pleased to be guest editing this issue, given the leadership of this journal within the international dialogue on practices of citizenship, globalization, internationalism, pedagogy, and human rights, and its record for vigilance against the slippery Western slope toward perpetuating knowledge imperialism and neo-colonialism. As trends of global migration, disaster and uprising continue to confront the public domain, Schools of Social Work across the world continue to engage with questions of how best to educate social work students toward an analysis of oppressive practices of power as well as liberation in the lives of all people. Social work must be engaged in internationalizing practices because social issues such as HIV/AIDS, poverty, shrinking welfare and violence, among many others, transcend geographical boundaries and identity locations. Trade, travel and technology have increased flows of people and information through porous borders, and social workers are engaged on the frontlines, struggling to respond within structures and processes that often perpetuate economic and cultural privilege. This special edition of International Social Work features the scholarship of authors who address many perspectives surrounding the question, how do we educate for internationalizing social work practices? The authors anchor their responses in their experiences with social work education, practice and research, drawing on local examples as they take up questions of global relevance. Mehmoona Moosa-Mitha’s article initiates the edition, asserting that thinking through the possibilities of internationalizing social work education must begin with a deconstruction of the neoliberal construct of citizenship, given it is the notion of citizenship upon which is built fundamental beliefs about membership and entitlements. She details a line of reasoning as follows: the provision of social work services is based upon determination of need; the determination of need rests upon the prevailing construction of rights and responsibilities afforded to a nation’s citizens. If those of us engaged in international social work education do not deconstruct the nationalist basis of social care policies, then we reinscribe differential access to them, a fundamental incongruence with our social justice mission. Moosa-Mitha provides concrete examples of how the legalist and neoliberal citizenship construction has trickle-down effects for social workers, including the dichotomizing 521750 ISW0010.1177/0020872814521750International Social WorkEditorial research-article2014