4 L Dominelli Leuven Talk on Empowering Practices 28 May 09

8/6/2019 4 L Dominelli Leuven Talk on Empowering Practices 28 May 09

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Empowering Practices:Challenges for 21st Century Practitioners

Lena DominelliThe University of Durham

Email: [email protected]


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International Definition of SocialWork

The social work profession promotes social change,problem solving in human relationships and theempowermentand liberationof people to enhance well-being. Utilising theories of human behaviour and socialsystems, social work intervenes at the points where

people interact with their environments. Principles ofhuman rightsand social justiceare fundamental to socialwork. These are central to anti-oppressive practice (AOP).

This definition is central to the development ofempowering practice because it focuses onsocial justice and human rights which lie at itscore. Doing empowering practice can be difficult.


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Threats to empowering practice Globalisation and the new managerialism changing labour

processes in social work.

Techno-bureaucratic practice replacing relational social work.

Economic recession and the restructuring of capitalist relations inthe economy and society.

Restructuring of the welfare state to increase private providers ofservices.

Resource shortages and resources targeted on the most needy.

Lack of public commitment to helping those in need through highquality state funded provisions.

Increasing levels of poverty and unemployment.

Professionalising social work at the expense of empowering peoplewho access services by using medical models of professionalism.

Globalisation

Globalisation is the penetration ofcapitalist social relations through allaspects of everyday life (everyday life

practices or ELPs). It is not just an economic system that

integrates all major economies in theworld, it also affects political, cultural andsocial relations.


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Neo-liberalism in globalisingpractices

Neo-liberalism, the current stage of globalisation, is a key ideology inspreading capitalist social relations as globalising practices from aright-wing, monetarist perspective (e.g., Milton Friedman,Economics Professor, University of Chicago) that fails people.

It focuses on: Individual self-sufficiency

Unregulated private business (not public services) Regulating the private sphere of individual lives Regulating labour (fewer unions and fewer workers rights) Internationalising the state (competitiveness) Using the welfare state as a site for capital accumulation

(privatisation and growth of business models) Exploiting natural and man-induced crises (for profit

opportunities, e.g., Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine). Neo-liberalism is environmentally unsustainable too.

Neo-liberalism is unsustainable as it creates winners and losers.


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Neo-Liberalisms Major Tenets are:

Liberalising trade.

Privatising industries including public utilities (for profit).

Cutting social benefits.

Commodifying social relationships.

Reducing professional power, especially in the socialprofessions.

Turning service users into consumers.

Making profits for the few justified as rewarding thosewho take risks.

Private ownership of the earths resources.

Disregarding future generations rights to the earthsresources.


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Neo-Liberalisms UnsustainablilityLeads to Crises

Consumer debt is out of hand American sub-prime rate increaseand mortgage collapse has affected everyone.

Recession impacts most on those who are poor Hidden debt collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) and structured

investment vehicles (SIVs) have meant that industrys assets are nottangible, e.g., Enron, Northern Rock, and do not promote growth or

capital accumulation. These cause resource misallocation and damage long-term

competitiveness and sustainable development. In 2006, Europes economy grew at 3.1%, unemployment fell to

6.9%. If jeopardised by the consumer credit crisis, growth could fallbelow 2%, as it has.

By 2008, the banking sector was in crises and economy inrecession. The public sector had to rescue the private sector andclean up its mess by buying its debts.

By 2009, most economies had been affected and Bank Aid hadreached trillions of dollars, all paid for by regressive taxes.


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Taking Stock of Contexts

In a globalising world, poverty is increasing withincountries and between them.

Poverty is a key structural inequality that is underminingattempts to enhance human well-being.

Environmental pollution affects poor people most.

Poverty exacerbates insecurities (political, social,economic, cultural), intensifies the marginalisation ofincreasing numbers of people and is integral to neo-liberalism.

Neo-liberalism has brought much grief and misery to themost marginalised people. Even today, as the economygoes into meltdown, the public sector is called upon torescue the financial sector at the expense of the poorestpeople (saving Wall Street, not Main Street).


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Inequalities Result in IncomeSecurity Only for Some

Income and wealth distribution have becomeincreasingly polarised. The top 20 per cent of the worldspopulation has accumulated 86 per cent of the wealth inthe last 30 years; the lowest 20 per cent controls only 1.3per cent.

This has resulted in a North-South differential that rosefrom 2 to 1 in the 18th century to 70 to 1 in 2002(George, 2003:18-19).

To put it more graphically, in 2007, the worlds richest 3people had between them more than the total grossdomestic product of the 48 poorest countries.

An employee at the top of the corporate ladder in theWest earns 200 to 300 times more than the averageworker compared to 40 to 60 times more during the1960s and 1970s (George, 2003:19).

The Shape of the New World Order

Source: Calculations are based on Hutton (1995:109) and ILO (2000).


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Globalisation has Produced a New

World Order For Whom?Globalisation is a socio-political and economic system that has

deepened capitalist social relations and economic integration; Produced asymmetrical power relations and an asymmetrical

distribution of power and resources; Resulted in environmental degradation; and Produced winners and losers.

The losers are the majority of the worlds people and the planet. The winners are primarily 946 individuals, who as billionaires in

2007 held $US 3.5 trillion and owned and controlled the worldslargest corporations.

They form an unaccountable elitewho:

follow neo-liberal ideologies in which the market is king (yes, it excludeswomen; only 63 rich women amongst them)

shape social policies within nation states, distort development to make money (for themselves) assuage their guilt through philanthropy when they retire from the

money-making business.

Growing Inequalities are ExperiencedDifferentially

Women, children and old people bear a disproportionateburden in these conflicts and forms of social exclusion.

The prioritisation of women and children in health andeducation under the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) will not change this picture as targets are

unlikely to be met, except perhaps in China. Men, particularly poor men are also adversely affected.

Boys become the majority of child soldiers drafted intoconflicts they should know nothing about. Adult men arethe key decision-makers and prime bearers of arms thatkeep these conflicts going. In the West, excluded blackand white working class men are disproportionatelyinvolved in (violent) crime, often in response to exclusionand are over-represented in the prison statistics.


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Globalisation Prioritises Techno-Security notSocial Justice or Human Rights

The nation-state becomes drawn into the securityframework to control and manage its own nationals andexclude non-nationals from making claims on its welfareprovisions. Managing discontent and keeping thedemands of labour in check are part of this task.

Techno-security involves maintaining control over peopleand the earths resources and is prioritised overeradicating injustices.

Techno-security is used to destroy opposition and tomanage disaffected people.

The surveillance society epitomises techno-security. The new world order is part of a networked system that

allows elites and capital to cross borders with ease,while preventing unskilled workers or ordinary peoplefrom doing so.


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Policies Move Control Away from

Service Users and Practitioners

Neo-liberalism favours contract government or contracted-out social services: Service users are turned into consumers with limited options. Poor people are excluded from the market-place of services. Under the new managerialism, practitioners lose control over relationships with

services users. In one of my research projects a social worker said:

I feel that managerialism and market forces within a mixed economy of welfare aredestroying professional social work practice. Increasingly the organisation is driventowards creating an expensive callous bureaucracy which prides itself on deliveringresource-led policies as prime measures of its effectiveness and efficiency.Socialservices departments are predominantly managed by white middle class men. Thisperpetuates the patriarchal, conservative nature of the organisation.

Globalisation changes the relationship between individuals and the state regardlessof role citizens, educators, students, practitioners. The priorities of the market mean that people and the environment suffer. Relational social work gives way to techno-bureaucratic social work.The new managerialism can impede social workers capacity to mobilise people or

communities against negative globalisation by exercising agency.


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Defining Well-beingEmpowering practice enhances human and environmental

well-being. The DH (2003) defined well-being as being:healthy, safe, enjoying and achieving in life, making apositive contribution to family and society and achievingeconomic well-being.

Critique of this definition:

- Focuses on personal attributes at the expense ofstructural inequalities; and

- Does not consider environmental issues. Personalattributes, structural inequalities and environmentalissues have to be addressed to achieve fulfilment andwell-being.

Poverty Undermines Well-being

Use the UDHR! Susan George argues that Article23 of the UDHR is relevant to povertyeradication strategies because it asserts that:

Everyone has the right to a standard of livingadequate forhealth and wellbeingincludingfood, clothing, housing and medical care andnecessary social services and the right tosecurity in the event of unemployment, sickness,disability, widowhood, old age or other lack oflivelihood (George, 2003:17).


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The Nation-State Plays an Important Role inReproducing Inequalities

The nation-state decides who gets welfareand who does not. Usually this is definedas focusing on the person, and ignoring

structural considerations. Corporate welfare the hidden welfare

state of subsidies and grants for businessis discounted or ignored, although it canbe significant - $125 billion in one year(Barlett and Steele, 1998).


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Holistic

Intervention

Chart

for Empowering

Anti-Oppressive

Practice

Source: Dominelli, L (2002)Anti-Oppressive SocialWork Theory andPractice (Palgrave)

Agency

Power Relations

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R

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Social andCultural Relations

Political and

Forces

PhysicalEnvironment

Spirituality, Faith

Values

International Domain

National Society

Community

Family

Person

EconomicAffiliation and

CELEB

RATING

EQUALITY

Thank YouEmail: [email protected]


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References Barlett, D L and Steele, J D (1998) Corporate Welfare: Special

Report in Time, 9 November. Department of Health (DH) (2003) Every Child Matters. London:

DH. Dominelli, L (2004) Practising Social Work in a Globalising World in

Tang, T N and Rowlands, A (eds) Social Work Around the World III.Berne: IASSW.

George, S (2003) Globalizing Rights? in M J Gibney (ed)Globalizing Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hutton, W (1995) The State Were In. London: Jonathan Cape. International Labour Organisation (ILO) (2000) World Labour

Report, 2000. Geneva: ILO Kroll, L and Fass, A (2007) The Worlds Billionaires, Forbes

Magazine, Special Report, 8 March. Ungar, M (2002) A Deeper, More Social Ecological Social Work

Practice in Social Services Review, Vol. 76, pp. 480-497.

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4 L Dominelli Leuven Talk on Empowering Practices 28 May 09