Short narratives as a qualitative approach to effects of social work interventions

Abstract

In this article we want to contribute theoretically and methodologically towards a qualitative approach to effects of social work interventions. We develop a relational understanding of effects, based on actor-network theory combined with narrative analysis. The central actor-network theory concepts, actant and translation, are introduced, arguing that social work interventions and their consequences are evolving through current adaption (translation) in networks where human actors and non-human entities (actants) are ascribed agency in narrative accounts. This is done with reference to an empirical study of the content and consequences of employment efforts, seen from the perspective of cash benefit recipients. In this study, short narratives were used to trace changes in cash benefit recipients' experience of work identity when they were participating in employment efforts. We argue that our approach to the effects of social work interventions is not limited to studies on employment efforts. It can also be applied in other fields of social work to gain knowledge from the point of view of primary producers of social work, that is clients and social workers.

Bringing the client back in: A comparison between political rationality and the experiences of the unemployed

“…Methodologically, the article demonstrates how longitudinal qualitative accounts of the experiences of welfare claimants can be used for a critical investigation of the gap between political perceptions and the perceptions of those directly affected by prevailing political rationality. Needless to say, qualitative accounts of lived experiences of the unemployed can be brought into the analysis for numerous reasons, such as to study the different forms of agency exercised by people in poverty (Hoggett, ; Lister, ; Müller, Hussain, Larsen, Hansen, Hansen, & Ejrnæs, ), to shed light on practices of street‐level bureaucracy and the logics of interaction between the system and the client (Olesen & Eskelinen, ), to study how welfare clients reflect and act upon specific reforms or discourses (Dencker‐Larsen & Lundberg, ; Nielsen, ), and to study how governmental technologies and discourses practically reshape the welfare subject (Høgsbro, ; Stenson, ). What we have sought to demonstrate here is a comparative research design that enables us to do something else, namely to view political rationality in the light of the lived experiences of those it affects (Patrick, ; Wright, ).…”

Reconsidering ‘What Works’ in Welfare-to-Work with the Vulnerable Unemployed: The Potential of Relational Causality as an Alternative Approach

“…As described by Biesta (2010: 497), '[i]n the social domain interventions do not generate effects in a mechanistic or deterministic way, but through processes thatstructurally, not pragmaticallyare open so that the connections between intervention and effect are non-linear and, at most, probalistic'. Rather than a linear causality, then, it is necessary to understand the processes of change within the social domain of unemployment in terms of a relational causality, by which the causal mechanisms are to be found in relational processes that are continuously performed, produced and reproduced during daily activities and practices (Olesen and Eskelinen, 2011).…”

Recognition and gendered identity constructions in labour activation

“…A narrative approach to studying identity construction can be particularly useful because it facilitates understanding of how individuals perceive and position themselves in a particular context and in relation to others (Larsson & Sj€ oblom, 2010). Short narratives represent performative talk-in-interaction, and may be interpreted as part of individuals' identity work (Olesen & Eskelinen, 2011).…”