RADICAL SOCIAL WORK AND SOCIAL ACTION

SOCIAL WORK SEMINAR PAPER

SUBMITTED BY

SANDEEP CHAURASIA
BASW FINAL YEAR STUDENT
ROLL NO. 07

AT

SCHOOL OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT

TATA INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
TULJAPUR, OSMANABAD

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 RADICAL SOCIAL WORK AND SOCIAL ACTION
ABSTRACT: In India, different social movements are going on against the politics of
neoliberalism. This paper examines the difference between radical social work and social
movements. This paper also reflects upon the ongoing movements and also criticizes social work
practice in neoliberal era through its managerial perspective. The paper has also tries to
reconcile social action and radical social work theory. As writer is a student social worker so he
tries to reflect his own experience of field work, theory and voluntary work.

Introduction:
Contemporary social work practice struggled with inability to tackle the
social issues which are related with structure and power dynamics of society. Social
work uses psychoanalytical theory (case work), group work and community work to
settle the existing problems which are created either by state or by capitalist class. Anti
capitalists’ movement, human rights movements showed the inability of social work
methods and processes because in these movements radical/critical approach of social
work practiced. It is not that social workers should be demoralized by inability of his/her
profession but they should take some radical approach rather than only doing social
action with only integrating marginalized sections, tribal and poor of the society. Because
these social action failed due to insufficiency of resources and powers while protesting
against the state and capitalist class because they have sufficient power and resources.
Therefore in this paper I tried to analyze and criticize the situation of society and also
tried to find solution that can works in present time.

Definition of Social Work:

The social work promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the
empowerment and liberation of people to enhance wellbeing. Utilizing theories of human
behavior and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact
with environments. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental to
social work. (Quoted by Harashima, 2005:4)
As the above definition is not talking about complete social change but it promotes the
change means somewhere it plays a role of agent for society and societal change. The
terms like empowerment, promotion, capacity building, awareness, skill development etc.
are frequently used terms in social work besides that they are not questioning the society
to change. Our approach is like preventive and curative within system and not like radical
change in the structure of the society.

Social Work- Adjustment or Change?

Social work, both as a body of knowledge and as a sphere of activity, has developed its
theory and practice from other social sciences. The influence in particular of psychology
has led to an over emphasis on pathological and clinical orientations to the loss of
structural and political implications. Training schools have tended to defend traditional
social work practice, in particular the dominant mode of social intervention known as
casework. Where critical debate has arisen, it has been reformist rather than radical, and
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has been concerned with method. The political, social and ideological place of social
work has never been satisfactorily discussed, nor has its possible exploitation as an agent
of social control been taken seriously. Social work has consequently failed to develop the
self criticism of other established disciplines and practices. Social work schools tend to
explain away student criticism, robbing arguments of legitimacy by appealing to areas of
the pathological, such as anxiety, authority problems, or developmental inadequacy.
Consequently, in the professional literature, there is a wide gap to be filled in the need for
a critical perspective within the profession. We feel that the important contributions made
by outside groups- Gay liberation, the women’s movement, mental patients’ union, trade
unions and tenants’ associations- reflect lack of confidence in social workers, usually
with good reasons. It is not intended to demoralize those social workers who are
themselves conditioned and controlled by the very institutional structures, in which they
work, but to make them aware of contradictions, and to assist them to develop critical
action.

Social Action as a method of Social Work:

A strategy to obtain limited social change at the intermediate or macro levels of society
which is generally used in non consensus situation and employs both ‘norm-adhering’
and ‘norm-testing’ modes of intervention. Three concepts are fundamental to this
definition: the scope of change, the use of power in effecting and resisting change, and
the change strategies employed (By S.K.Khinduka and Bernard J. Coughlin Washington
& Gonzaga University).
Above definition revealed that social action is used as tool for mobilizing people. And it
has the scope of change within society with respect to a planned strategy. However such a
mobilization can never be taken to its logical conclusion as the contradiction can never be
brought and a stage of a conflict the haves and have not.
The radicals, on the other hand, take a diametrically different position on practically
every issue. While taking an optimistic view of human nature, they deeply distrust
institutions of social control. For them society is primarily a setting within which
struggles occur and which affects the outcome of the struggles. Inequality is not seen as
inevitable; it results from exploitative material conditions, and is a major cause of social
conflict. Where Rights are never given; they are always taken because law and the state
serve as instruments of oppression employed by the ruling classes for their own benefit.
Finally, the radicals believe that classes are social groups with distinctive interests that
inevitably bring them into conflict with other groups having opposed interests. These two
individual types (i.e., conservative and radical world views) suggest three generalizations.
First, most social activists do not share the assumptions of conservatives. Second, to the
extent that radicalism stands for fundamental change, most social activists tend to
sympathize with a philosophy of radicalism. Third, most social activists, however, do not
fully accept radicalism. Although dissatisfied with the existing distribution of resources,
they do not seek equity through a revolutionary change in the social structure, nor do they
regard all laws as oppressive instruments of the ruling classes. In certain situations all
they seek is vigorous enforcement of existing legislation; in others, they campaign for the
enactment of new laws.

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Managerialism:

Managerialism dominates the way social work is now delivered, coinciding with the
economic, political, and ideological changes of the last 30 years which included the
reconstruction of managerial power in the 1980s. There was destruction of organizational
inhibitions to the exercise of managerial discretion, including the reduction of trade union
rights and power, and the extension of managerial control over how to use workers. One
result is that rather than social workers having an element of discretion in terms of
services and practice, this discretion has moved to managers.
Neoliberalism is not only a political ideology that is ‘‘associated more with individual
empowerment and responsibility than it is with social change and social justice’’. It is
also a style of management. The way the profession of social work has decided to
respond to neoliberalism is to not critique it but to adopt its management style, or what
Ferguson and Woodward call ‘‘managerialism’’, as a way to structure social work
agencies. Social work agencies are now structured more like businesses, with the focus
placed on productivity standards, cutting costs, and maximizing efficiency instead of
providing quality services to service users. There is also a push to privatize services to
for-profit agencies where bottom line costs outweigh individual care. This managerialism
becomes encompassing and creates a ‘‘one size fits all’’ the over arching neoliberal
agenda is not about helping individuals that are oppressed or exploited, but about
‘‘consumerism’’. The expectation for social workers is not to address the situation that
service users are in but to make that service user useful to neoliberalism. Social workers
become functionaries. The managerialism approach of ‘‘efficiency and effectiveness’’
for social work focuses more on ‘‘what works’’ in regards to getting service users back
into the neoliberal, consuming machine, than on addressing neoliberalism and its effects
on service users.
Above statement clearly said that social work is now more about to mange the problems
within society. But it is not questioning the core reason of the problem. So the radical
perspective of social work is not seen due to its managerial approach through various
voluntary and non voluntary institutions.

In The Age of Neoliberalism:-

Contemporary social work professors may pay lip service to the radical history of social
work, but when it comes to promoting radical ideas today, social work programs focus
more on how to work within a neoliberal environment than critiquing and changing it.
This becomes antithetical to a profession which considers itself to be an ‘‘ethical career’’.
The authors point out that the thread that has extended through the history of social work,
from its radical history to contemporary approach, is its ‘‘anti-oppressive practice’’. With
radical and critical theory viewing neoliberalism as being oppressive (racially, and from a
gender and class perspective). For social workers in the field, a critique of a neoliberal
system that oppresses and exploits people is essential to the very ethical practice that
social workers claim to engage in.

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Radical Social Work:

Radical social work, as a distinct and consciously articulated model or approach within
social work, only really emerged in the 1970s, in Britain, Canada, and Australia. The
reasons for its emergence at that time and in these places, as well as the specific forms
that it took. Since its earliest beginnings, however, social work has mirrored wider
ideological conflicts and debates within society regarding the roots of social problems
and how to best address them. Not surprisingly then, alongside the dominant models of
theory and practice, which, reflecting Marx’s dictum that ‘the ruling ideas in every age
are the ideas of ruling class’, have often been fairly conservative or at best reformist in
content, there have also been more radical conceptions of the role of social work.

Critical social work:

Critical social work refers to a broad range of practice theories that share the following
orientations:
• A recognition that large scale social processes, particularly those associated with
class, race and gender, contribute fundamentally to the personal and social issues
social workers encounter in their practice;
• The adoption of a self-reflexive and critical stance to the often contradictory
effects of social work practice and social policies;
• A commitment to co-participatory rather than authoritarian practice relations. This
involves workers and service users, as a well as academic, practitioners and
service users as co-participants engaged with, but still distinct from, one another;
• Working with and for oppressed populations to achieve social transformation.

Although a critical tradition has existed in the social work profession since its inception
more than a century ago, a distinct and internally diverse critical social work canon
emerged only in the 1960s and 1970s. Substantial structural changes over the past four
decades, including the rise of globalization and market driven approaches to the
management of human services, already threaten the continuation of critical practice
traditions in social work. Indeed, some critical social workers have declared the happy
days of activist practice have now passed. The changing environment of public
administration poses challenges to the practice from critical analyses. It is argued that
these contests provide sites for the reinvention of critical practice theory towards more
collaborative and open ended approaches to activism in social work. By recognizing the
challenges from within, critical social workers can strengthen and diversify their capacity
to forge critical approaches relevant to social work in the 21st century.

Radical/critical social work also criticizes traditional social work because complex social
problems are reduced to individual psychological ones and peoples' problems are
privatized cutting them off from others who share their experience and who could jointly
deal with it. Radical/critical practices, therefore, often takes the form of group and
community approaches with conscientisation, raising the consciousness of the oppressed
so they become aware, and resist, the process of oppression rather than accepting it as

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inevitable. It is about politicization and learning to perceive economic, political, and
social situations and contradictions, and taking action against the oppressive elements of
reality.

Radical/Critical Practice in these 'Managerialist Times'

Although there are now fewer opportunities to engage in the group and community
orientated activities outlined above or indeed radical/critical practice itself, this does not
mean that the politicization, consciousness raising and critical reflection strategies cannot
be carried out. One has only to recall that the details and subtitles of the interactions that
take place between social workers and clients/service users are beyond the reach and
control of managers. There is also some scope to influence group work strategies on
radical/critical lines.
social work will not be at the forefront of societal change and also that one can easily feel
a sense of powerlessness and despair arising from consumerism, the resurgence of
individualism, the collapse of Left politics and the advance of the Right (Leonard 1997;
Davies and Leonard 2004). For social work, this sense of powerlessness and despair
arises from the increased emphasis on bureaucracy together with resulting loss of
autonomy; in essence, the domination of managerialism. But such pessimism must be
resisted as it fails to take into account the resurgence of social critique in the newer social
movements like the anti-capitalism/globalization protests, a long way from social work as
they may seem. Such protests present us with the possibility of resistant solidarity leading
to a politics of hope rather than despair and for social work this leads to the
radical/critical practice.

Professionalization and social worker radicalism: according to study conducted by

Irwin Epstein, University of Michigan school of social work, 1970:-

Professional social workers were found to conform to determine whether their

professional and social-action commitments a model of social work as a "neutralist
professional community." Contrary to the propositions implied in this paradigm, the
findings indicate that social workers do not constitute an integrated professional
community, and that structural elements of the community are not organized around a
neutralist ideology of professionalism. Moreover, integration into the social-work
community is not associated with more conservative conceptions of appropriate strategies
of social change for social work. Those social workers who are highly committed to an
ideology of professionalism, however, are significantly less likely to endorse radical
social-change strategies, suggesting that social-worker neutralism might be more a
product of individual aspiration to professional status than a response to organized and
inherently neutralist professional community.

Radical social work in Indian context:

Since the last 2 decades, within the Indian context there has been a lot of contestation
over natural resources between local communities and large multinationals in all over the
central Indian tribal belt. But communities have resisted their dispossession and have

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been severally repressed by the state on behalf of the MNCs. While on the other hand
these communities have been supported by the CPI M.L. (Maoist). These are the recent
happenings which pose challenges to the social worker in these areas where power
matters. Although other than this movement if we see the environmental movement like
Narmada Bachao Andolan, which was started from past 2 decades which is opposing big
dams like SSP (sardar sarovar project in Gujarat) on Naramada River which dispossessed
thousands of Adivasis from their land and homes. This struggle was lead by one of the
activist, Medha Patekar who was created resistance in front of government, World Bank
and other big capitalists who involved in this project. This is also interesting that she was
social worker but after seeing this type of oppression, she decided to practice Radical
social work approach but why? We saw that radical social work in India mainly arose
with the big issues through different movements like in NBA, Adivasi Jangal Jan
Andolan, Adivasi Ekta Parishad, Himalaya Bachao Andolan, Silent Valley Movement,
C.S.D. (campaign for sustainable dignity) etc. all these movements mainly against big
projects created by capitalists. In the decades of 1970s and 1980s there were a lot of
agitation going on over issues like dowry, sanitation etc. at that time radicalism among
social workers were with more commitment. After passing of decades these agitation was
not passed through generations and these issues were converted into programmes and
policies which was run N.G.O.s (voluntary institutions) and social workers became agent
of implementation of these programmes and policies. This period was transforming phase
where commodification of needs taken place. And the spirit of radicalism was seemed to
be faded and whole consciousness died in contemporary generation. So in present time
there is a need of mass consciousness through radical movements. So that issues like
displacement, deforestation, encroachment etc. should be addressed.

Radical social work and social action:

Now it is also clear that at what extent radicalism can change the society at the same time
if we talk about social action then it can be seen that some or other way there is
overlapping in both the practices. Differences are there like human right or oppression
based movement where social work uses holistic approach but if we saw there are two
types approaches like one is within system includes direct practice with victims or users
and working with organization to radicalize and democratize the action so this is a form
of social action. Whereas in second approach, radical social worker works outside the
system with aims to change the material conditions and oppressive structural patterns of
system or society.
.
Radical practice is collective activity and political campaigning:

Individual approaches can be radical in bringing about changes in people’s personal

situations and in the way in which they see themselves. However, collective approaches
have a qualitatively greater potential for change at the community and structural level, a
potential which has been almost completely lost over the past two decades (Ferguson
2008). Collective approaches are relevant for social workers at three levels. Firstly, there
is the use of community work as a method of practice. We need to apply pressure to

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restore radical, campaigning community work to its rightful place within social work.
Secondly, there is the issue of the collective organization of social workers, primarily
through trade union involvement. Radical social work practice cannot take place in a
vacuum. On the one hand, it needs resources; on the other, those involved in it will, from
time to time, need protection from managers who are less than enthusiastic about workers
who are active in advocating on behalf of their clients. Strong workplace-based trade
union organization continues to provide the best means of achieving both these goals.
Finally, social workers need to be involved with wider social movements. In the past,
social work benefited enormously from the energy and ideas of the women’s movement,
the environmental movement and so on.

Radical social work and retaining a commitment to good practice:

From two decades group work and community work have become budget driven
managerialism practice by social institutions. Such practices has failed, at the same time
while case work contribute something to the individual and also raise the questions on
society's structure and pressurize social workers to practice radicalism and show more
commitment as good practice

CONCLUSION:

In the words of Paulo Freire (1990) (p. 9)-

“Society is transformed when we transform it. And we transform it when the organized
and mobilized political forces of the popular classes and workers throw themselves into
history to change the world . . . History is made by us, and as we make it, we are made
and remade by it”.
Above statement rightly said about our social change and our willingness to change. In
conclusion this statement is suitable because radical social work and social action are the
way of change within the structure of system as well as changing the system's structure.
In this paper I reflected that to solve society's problem we can change society structure at
various level from lower to upper, but this can be seen as impossible task. But over
millions of years society is in the same structure of caste and class. This structure of the
society should be change and it can be possible only when radical social work will be
able to create inner consciousness about change in common man.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
I am grateful to my guide, Mrs. Shiraz B. Prabhu who inspires me with her experiences in
movements. And I also thankful to Mr. Manoj joseph who gave us orientation about
seminar presentation and draft format; to my friends who participated in my topic
discussion through which I came to know various dimensions about radical social work.
My own experiences during field work and voluntary work in Narmada Bachao Aandolan
also helps me to compile my seminar paper.

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