@article{1d585754-c41c-4e07-88a2-4450bb211b76,
author = {Stephen A.  Webb},
title = {Social work and “the social”: a biopolitical perspective},
journal = {Issues in Social Work},
volume = {2020},
number = {Volume 25, Issue 3},
year = {2020},
issn = {1507-4285},
pages = {163-177},keywords = {biopolitics; normalisation; family life; pastoral power; social work},
abstract = {Amid the uncertainty of the current political context and an unprecedented institutional crisis in European welfare, this article offers a theoretical analysis of the problems arising from the historical reshaping of social work as a biopolitical organ of the state. It undertakes this analysis from a biopolitical perspective and asks how this framework can help us in defining the specific features of social work intervention in family life? To properly answer, the article proposes a methodological understanding which explicates a series of relations between “biopolitics – the social – social work”. To this end, supported by analyses from Foucault and Donzelot, the article shows how social work as a form of state governmentality intervenes in the lives of families to normalise behaviour and conduct. From a critical vantage point, these findings compel us to re-examine the problem of consent and consensus when working with service users and families in the midst of an increasingly more controlling authoritarian social work.},
doi = {10.4467/24496138ZPS.20.024.13079},
url = {https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/zeszyty-pracy-socjalnej/article/social-work-and-the-social-a-biopolitical-perspective}
}