%0 Journal Article
%T Social work and “the social”: a biopolitical perspective
%A Webb, Stephen A.
%J Issues in Social Work
%V 2020
%R 10.4467/24496138ZPS.20.024.13079
%N Volume 25, Issue 3
%P 163-177
%K biopolitics, normalisation, family life, pastoral power, social work
%@ 1507-4285
%D 2020
%U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/zeszyty-pracy-socjalnej/article/social-work-and-the-social-a-biopolitical-perspective
%X 
	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.