I have been away, spending a bit of redundancy pay, having some time out of mind and appreciating how privileged I am to have the opportunity. It is good to ‘stop’ at times, if you can. Spent some quality time on a Greek Island in the Agean Sea and revisited some old haunts in South London. Of course, there is no real ‘getting away’, so that in all forms of respite the mind continues to process observations; generating reflections of, and on, the material and ideological troubles of the social world. An end, possibly, to ‘academic’ life also frees the mind in some ways.
All modern cities illustrate the contradictions of late capitalism. I wonder, as many readers of this blog do, about the place of social work in this schema. The Abolition in Social Work and Human Services text I have put together with Bob Pease is due to be published in September. It confronts the historic and contemporary role of social work in processes of state-sanctioned oppression, particularly the social control of threatening groups. A variety of academics and activists consider the implications of this reality for practice futures, developing theory and tools for social justice practice.
Disparate locations like Athens and London have their differing cultural identities and political histories, but both exhibit extremes of wealth and poverty: graphic social suffering sits alongside rampant conspicuous consumption. Social work learnings / knowledge, and the associated scope for applied sociological understandings, can provide insight into the social contradictions seen on such city streets; the complex scripts acted out in human lives.
The ‘vibrancy’ of gentrifying Brixton is produced by accelerating capitalism: a Summer nightlife carnival of young working class angst complete with soundtrack; wailing sirens, and seats at café tables for the paying audience of middle class voyeurs. Different worlds collide and intersect – Black intergenerational poverty and new white money and all the complex nuances in between – and all on fast forward hyper-drive.
This kind of sociological understanding – that life trajectories are influenced by class, race, inequality of means and opportunity is, or should be, native to social work. This is not a simplistic or deterministic understanding but it is an insight which speaks to the interaction between structure and agency – the material context of social life under capitalism. Not that things are much different in Auckland, although the classed suburban boundaries are generally less mixed and blurred.
This graphic classed and racialised inequality is presented as normal, natural and desirable by ACT party politicians and their ilk. Just how they sell such bullshit is beyond me, but sell it they do. You see, wealth is about individual choice and natural advantages and the rich work hard/harder, right? To disturb the established order of privilege is to intrude on the natural hierachy of wealth and power. The individuated economic competition envisaged by the political right conveniently ignores the fact that participants start at different points on the social race track. Material advantage is naturalised and disguised as meritocrcacy. This is the sweet little lie that Seymour and co package as equality. To question this farce is to be ‘woke’, right?
Now, one of the (many) challenges with social work is that it offers the daily opportunity to see beneath the surface of this illusion, but it does not – as it is presently constructed – provide the opportunity to do a great deal about it. This is because social work is essentially in service to the liberal capitalist state – services are provided or funded (although increasingly underfunded and / or withdrawn by the current hard right regime) by the state. We can, within defined parameters, help those in need and / or seek to intervene with failing / struggling families.
However the reality is that most practice involves behavioural solutions to structural problems – policing and moralising functions. Now, and in the past, many social workers and their agencies have sought to identify and intervene in the unequal structures of socio-economic power that sit behind social suffering in Aotearoa New Zealand, but the deck is stacked – the power of definition sits with the state.
Our Abolition book confronts this potentially disempowering truth from a variety of angles. It is necessary to work with oppressed communities to further their needs rather than diagnose and treat individuals and families. It is necessary to be politically informed – to see the webs of power and privilege that we are entangled in, and to be motivated by a vision of social justice practice: moving this vision from the ideal and impossible to the real and practical. If we can’t be inside, maybe we should be outside. The utter horror of Gaza and the increasing arrogance of the political right here and internationally should fuel a quiet and careful rage. Look around you – it is not, as they say, ‘OK’.
Image credit: street – Nicholas Vigier