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Globally, social workers are committed to human rights and challenging unjust social structures. However, their close ties to the state often reinforce such systems of oppression.
The first to apply abolitionist theory from international perspectives to social work, this book examines this contradiction, exploring whether social work can embrace radical change while operating within state structures. Bringing together scholars from the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, Finland, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, it explores alternatives for addressing issues such as child protection, mental health, violence against women, drug use, violent extremism, homelessness and Indigenous sovereignty.
Essential reading for academics, researchers, students, human service practitioners and social activists, this book interrogates the implications of social work’s complicity with systems that perpetuate oppression and social injustice.
“This powerful collection brings abolitionist thinking to the forefront of social work. It confronts the profession’s complicity in colonial and state violence, opening space for urgent debate on justice, liberation and the radical transformation of social work itself.” Vasilios Ioakimidis, University of West Attica and the International Federation of Social Work
“This groundbreaking text is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the future trajectory of social work or has questioned whether the profession can authentically make claims to challenging injustice and promoting human liberation. Showcasing the work of a range of critical scholars, this edited collection importantly offers concrete alternatives that address the current gap between the espoused social justice values of social work and the realities of much contemporary practice. Positing a radical rethink of the profession, the book provides a much-needed resource for educators, students and practitioners in the pursuit of a more emancipatory approach to social work.” Christine Morley, Queensland University of Technology
“Society is increasingly immersed in a toxic brew of Orwellian and Kafkaesque forms of injustice. Into this mix, carceral surveillance melds with irrational, byzantine bureaucracy: a dystopian concatenation that attenuates agency, obviates human rights and objectifies personhood. Into this arena, the theme of abolition in social work takes on a particular purchase as cogently demonstrated in the latest progressive offering from Ian Hyslop and Bob Pease. This edited text makes an original and timely contribution to the reworking of abolitionist practices in social work by championing new visions, possibilities and challenges. I highly commend this publication and its seminal advancement of radical thinking and practice aimed at transforming carceral systems in society.” Stan Houston, Queen’s University Belfast (Emeritus)
Ian Hyslop is Honorary Lecturer with the School of Social Practice, Faculty of Arts and Education, University of Auckland.
Bob Pease is Adjunct Professor at the School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania and Honorary Professor at Deakin University.
1. The politics of abolition in social work and human services - Ian Hyslop and Bob Pease
Part 1: The abolitionist critique: foundations and visions
2. Why abolition - Dorothy Roberts
3. Social work and the abolitionist movement in the United States - Alan J. Dettlaff
4. Abolition and child welfare in England: is another world possible? - Anna Gupta
5. Radical reflection plus radical transformation equals revolutionary social work - Bindi Bennett and Péta Phelan
6. Punishment disguised as ‘help’: carcerality in the human services and the role of social work towards abolition - Sacha Jamieson and Lobna Yassine
7. Wither child maltreatment investigations by social workers: a case for abolishing the principal carceral link in the family regulation system - Lisa Merkel-Holguin and Ida Drury
Part 2: Abolitionist thinking in practice: implications for social justice organising
8. Social work and social justice: the opportunity of an abolitionist lens - Ian Hyslop
9. Indigenous child protection in Canada: the insanity of doing it the same way - Peter Choate
10. The roadmap to child protection abolition for Māori - Kerri Cleaver
11. Prison abolition as a feminist of colour project: lessons from the United States - Mimi E. Kim
12. The limits of violence prevention in the non- profit industrial complex: moving beyond the masculinist state - Bob Pease
13. Transformative justice informed community responses to harm: a conversation with Idil Ali, Lauren Caufield and Anita Thomasson - Anne-lise Ah-fat
14. Dismantling the master’s house? Abolition, deradicalisation and social work - Sophie Shall and David McKendrick
15. Harm reduction in the opiate crisis: non- carceral, community- led services and compassion - Donna Baines and Mohamed Ibrahim
16. ‘They see it as Big Brother watching at all times’: lone mothers and their children in Ireland’s ‘Family Hubs’ - Aoife Donohue and Paul Michael Garrett
Part 3: Facing the challenges of abolitionism: critical engagement with the state
17. Abolition, decolonisation and public health approaches to child protection: convergence, divergence and the new neoliberalism - Emily Keddell
18. Haunting, abolition and Finnish child welfare - Kris Clarke and Mwenza Blell
19. Beyond ‘doing harm’ and ‘doing nothing’: creating generative alternatives to psychiatric carcerality - Emma Tseris
20. Twin births, twin abolitions: abolishing the capitalist, carceral state and the liberal individual – and, with them, conventional social work - John Fox
21. After social work? - Chris Maylea