EBOOK
About
Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) responds to the timely and important call for police abolition by analyzing professional social work as one alternative commonly proposed as a ready-made solution to ending police brutality. Drawing on both historical analysis and lessons learned from decades of organizing abolitionist and decolonizing practices within the field and practice of social work (including social service, community organizing, and other helping fields), this book is an important contribution in the discussion of what abolitionist social work could look like. This edited volume brings together predominantly BIPOC and queer/trans* social work survivors, community-based activists, educators, and frontline social workers to propose both an abolitionist framework for social work practice and a transformative framework that calls for the dissolution and restructuring of social work as a profession.
Rejecting the practices and values encapsulated by professional social work as embedded in carceral and colonial systems, Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) moves us towards a social work framework guided by principles of mutual aid, accountability, and relationality led by Indigenous, Black, queer/trans*, racialized, immigrant, disabled, poor and other communities for whom social work has inserted itself into their lives. Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is a call to move towards an abolitionist framework of social work.
"Social movements are coalescing around the crucial work of struggling for abolitionist futures, based around the vital maxims of 'care not cops,' and 'support not punishment.' But what kind of care and support are we orienting toward? Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) helps to clarify these liberatory visions by engaging in the critical and careful work of assessing the carceral complicities at work in the 'caring professions' writ large. The authors provide both a trenchant critique of social work as it has historically evolved, and a transformative vision for what caring could mean."
"Unlike anti-oppressive social work texts that call on social workers to act better, Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) also calls on them to refuse to act: to act extra-legally, and to act prefiguratively. This collection foregrounds the voices of marginalized communities and people who have been subjected to social work in order to go beyond critique and to provide concrete examples of non-professional models of social working. Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is a must-read for practitioners, aspiring practitioners, scholars, and critics of social work."
"What a ground-breaking and courageous critique of contemporary social work as a profession and practice! Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is an inspiring collection that offers compelling arguments for abolishing the current incarnation of social work, advocating instead for a radical reimagining that includes transformative models rooted in community care and solidarity. It is essential reading for social work scholars, practitioners, and activists committed to dismantling oppressive systems and fostering genuine liberation for those most affected by intersecting forms of oppression."
"Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is a cutting-edge collection that joins the growing canon of abolitionist, anti-carceral, and decolonial social work literature calling for a fresh, new, liberatory approach to social work theory and practice. Centering communities that are marginalized and heavily policed, the editors and authors provide a complex and compelling update to the care, coercion, and control nexus underlying contemporary social work. This collection provides an important and decisive contribution to this pressing and important debate and the potential for an emancipatory future for social work."
"Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is a transformative collection of essays by a range of critical social wor
Rejecting the practices and values encapsulated by professional social work as embedded in carceral and colonial systems, Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) moves us towards a social work framework guided by principles of mutual aid, accountability, and relationality led by Indigenous, Black, queer/trans*, racialized, immigrant, disabled, poor and other communities for whom social work has inserted itself into their lives. Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is a call to move towards an abolitionist framework of social work.
"Social movements are coalescing around the crucial work of struggling for abolitionist futures, based around the vital maxims of 'care not cops,' and 'support not punishment.' But what kind of care and support are we orienting toward? Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) helps to clarify these liberatory visions by engaging in the critical and careful work of assessing the carceral complicities at work in the 'caring professions' writ large. The authors provide both a trenchant critique of social work as it has historically evolved, and a transformative vision for what caring could mean."
"Unlike anti-oppressive social work texts that call on social workers to act better, Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) also calls on them to refuse to act: to act extra-legally, and to act prefiguratively. This collection foregrounds the voices of marginalized communities and people who have been subjected to social work in order to go beyond critique and to provide concrete examples of non-professional models of social working. Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is a must-read for practitioners, aspiring practitioners, scholars, and critics of social work."
"What a ground-breaking and courageous critique of contemporary social work as a profession and practice! Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is an inspiring collection that offers compelling arguments for abolishing the current incarnation of social work, advocating instead for a radical reimagining that includes transformative models rooted in community care and solidarity. It is essential reading for social work scholars, practitioners, and activists committed to dismantling oppressive systems and fostering genuine liberation for those most affected by intersecting forms of oppression."
"Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is a cutting-edge collection that joins the growing canon of abolitionist, anti-carceral, and decolonial social work literature calling for a fresh, new, liberatory approach to social work theory and practice. Centering communities that are marginalized and heavily policed, the editors and authors provide a complex and compelling update to the care, coercion, and control nexus underlying contemporary social work. This collection provides an important and decisive contribution to this pressing and important debate and the potential for an emancipatory future for social work."
"Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is a transformative collection of essays by a range of critical social wor