Anarchist Perspectives for Social Work : Disrupting Oppressive Systems

This book seeks to rigorously and specifically engage with anarchist theory and find application to social work fields of practice and social work theory.

Social work and the crisis of representation are a common theme for practice and theory. During these volatile times-of pandemic, climate change, civil unrest, and the rise of right-wing fascist ideologies, we must confront the growing challenge of how social work can remain relevant. The fact is that social workers need to have hope in that their work matters, and that there are ways to do more than respond to individual suffering while the world burns. This book makes the radical claim that there are ways to reconcile ideas from anarchism with a kind of social work that seeks to unmake itself, to be part of the project to bring about a better world. The reader is invited to see the chapters of this work as a journey to explore what an anarchist social work theory could offer as various topics are used to illustrate new ways of thinking -both about social problems and of social work itself