Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
(Chapter 9)
“The key features of critical social science paradigm that are especially
relevant for modernist forms of critical social work includes the claim
that macro-social structures shape social relations at every level of
social life… for example… capitalism shapes relations between middle-
and working-class people”(2002, p. 173). This goes for Euro-centrism,
and Patriarchy.
“Another feature of critical social work is the view that the oppressed
are complicit in their oppression” (2002, p. 174) via imposed
“dominant-ideologies that present the current social order as just”
(2002, p. 174) and the ‘normal’.
Anti-Oppressive Practice
Out of all the conflict because of the diversity of critical social work,
arose anti-oppressive social work practice. It first arose in the United
Kingdom in the late 1980s. Some of the key and influential scholars on
AOP were such authors as Dalrymple and Burke, Baines, Dominelli, and
Benjamin (2002, p. 178).
The reason for its emergence was to move beyond class oppression
and to extend to the personal and cultural bases of oppression–which
must be integrated with structural analysis of oppression.
The latest wave of critical social work, like radical, feminist, anti-racist,
and structural social work (2002, p.173).
So What Is Postmodernism?
Post modernists also use bodily signifiers (that don’t rely on reason) to
detect danger.
Postmodernism challenges the idea that our identities are fixed, for
example, a ‘working-class’ person, or a ‘women’. Post theorists assert
that our identities are socially constructed through language. That
means our identities are fluid and change according to context.
Postmodernists focus on understanding local diverse experiences of
people within a community, rather than trying to construct a single
story or narrative (i.e. capitalism or Marxism) about an event or a
population.
Key Concepts
Discourse
Subjectivity
Subjectivity is the word used, rather than identity, to refer to our sense
of ourselves. We all have multiple selves that may change, conflict and
be ‘under construction’.
Power
It’s the argument that we are always powerful and powerless at same
time; depending on our own narratives and our discourse. Post
theorists argue that power is exercised rather than possessed, that it is
not only primarily repressive, but also productive and it is analyzed as
coming from the bottom up.
Deconstruction
Build supportive community - Who sees this other ‘you’? Who can
witness this?
Pros
Cons
Take away time and effort into social change, justice, and equality.