From ridicule to institutionalization: anti-oppression, the state and social work

Abstract

Anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices are considered essential components of social work education and practice. This paper charts the rise and rationale for these initiatives, detailing the social and political factors that influenced their development and incorporation into the profession. The criticism of such measures from a variety of perspectives is also discussed. Whilst this was at times vitriolic and did affect policy, the claim that it constituted a backlash is contested. Influenced by a Marxist view of the state and Foucauldian insights into both the power of discourse and controlling aspects of the ‘helping professions’, it is argued that what were considered radical measures have now become institutionalized and in the process lost their original meaning. Anti-oppressive social work, rather than being a challenge to the state has allowed the state to reposition itself once again as a benign provider of welfare, and via the anti-oppressive social worker is able to enforce new moral codes of behaviour on the recipients of welfare.

Developing a ‘critical’ approach to patient and public involvement in patient safety in the NHS: learning lessons from other parts of the public sector?

“…54 Whilst early critiques concentrated on class and challenges to the pathologizing of the poor as responsible for their own poverty, by the 1980s and 1990s, the focus had shifted to how a number of groups were oppressed in society on the grounds of their race, gender, disability and sexual orientation. This saw the emergence first of Black, anti-racist critiques, [55][56][57][58][59][60] followed later by anti-discriminatory practice critiques covering disability, 61,62 sexuality 63,64 and age discrimination.…”

Out and Proud? Social Work's Relationship with Lesbian and Gay Equality

“…Such categories involve operations of power and result in the establishment of normative frameworks so, in respect of sexuality, a heteronormative framework is presumed and embedded in social work. Further critiques of ADP/AOP frameworks are offered by McLaughlin (2005), Millar (2008) and Featherstone and Green (2009).…”

Thinking from experience in psychosocial practice: reclaiming and teaching ‘use of self’

“…However, McGloughlin (2005) identified this perspective as reflecting 'a politics of failure' in a context where neo-liberalisation of welfare services had usurped any radical egalitarian vision of social justice. In a recent critical review Rush and Keenan (2013) argue that the limitations of AOP in its own terms (its emancipatory intent) has to be understood in terms of the residualisation of welfare in neo-liberal welfare regimes.…”