Governing Through Relationship: A Positive Critique of School Social Work Practice in Post-Earthquake, Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract

This article outlines some findings from an inquiry undertaken in the aftermath of 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which positive critique was used to examine the practice accounts of twelve school social workers alongside characteristics of recovery policies. Consistent with Foucault’s (1988, 2003a,b, 2013a) mode of critique and his theorisation of biopolitics and pastoral power, positive critique recognises the multiplicity and productivity of contemporary power relations operating at the populational, collective and individual levels of life. A feature of the participants’ accounts of their practices with affected schoolchildren in the recovery space is their commitment to restoring and protecting their clients’ well-being through therapeutically inclined relational practice. The Christchurch earthquake recovery strategy also sets out the provision of specialised, individual assistance for vulnerable populations excluded from ‘normal’ psychosocial recovery processes because of their inability to participate in community self-help initiatives. The findings presented in this article provide a critical space for social workers to reflect on the dimensions of their relational work that function as therapeutic governance practices that can both strengthen and resist the normative notions of vulnerability and recovering well.

Thinking boxes, behavioural boys and the politics of love: ‘Doing’ post-qualitative social work research

“…The effects of this neuro-framework is that it locates the source and treatment of emotional-behavioural problems within children. It aligns with developmental knowledge, which assumes children are incomplete humans, in need of positive guidance and instruction (Tudor, 2020). These concerns were intensified following the earthquakes when there was an over-arching concern for children not being able to cope with the traumatic effects of the earthquakes and a range of interventions, programmes and services (including school social work) were introduced to protect their wellbeing.…”

“…We return to a particular piece of data from qualitative research, which sought to gain insight into school social work practice following two major earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand (see Tudor, 2018Tudor, , 2020. School social work emerged in New Zealand in the 1990s as a government-funded initiative to assist children and families in schools situated in low socioeconomic areas (Ministry of Social Development, 2015).…”

“…We now turn to examine Vivienne's performative enactment within the encounter: 'And I think I might have actually said to him, "I love you or something"'. In the initial analysis (see Tudor 2018Tudor , 2020, the focus was on Vivienne's expression of love with the boy as part of a discursive practice enacted within a caring mode of therapeutic governance. The emphasis was on the confessional, truth-telling techniques imbued in the group processes and the caring social work response that shaped the desires and actions of the little man to know himself as an autonomous, thinking subject.…”

“…In this paper, we undertake a post-qualitative re-analysis of research data from an inquiry into school social work practice in Canterbury, New Zealand (see Tudor, 2018Tudor, , 2020 to see what new insights, relations and practices we can bring about. We deploy Barad's (2014) concept and method of diffraction, which attends to difference as an affirmative, ethical practice in which patterns of meaning and materiality are re-worked to make new patterns of understanding (187).…”

“…In the initial analysis of the moment (see Tudor 2018, 2020), Foucault’s concept of biopolitics was critically deployed. Biopolitics is a productive and positive form of power that takes life as its object, seeking to extend, optimise and maximise it (Foucault, 1978).…”