SWTP339 Law and Social Work
Task:
In 2008 the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) held its international conference in Durban, South Africa. T and local divides was timely as, despite the catchcry of globalisation, many nation states were increasingly bunkering and drawing themselves into what anthropologist Ghassan Hage (2003, p. xii) refers to as a ‘pervasive paranoid nationalistic culture of neo-liberal capitalism’. Alongside this a human rights discourse was rapidly sinking into a security discourse. Reflecting on this conference and updating the keynote address I gave on this occasion brings little joy, for the human rights trajectory has increasingly spiralled downwards. This chapter offers some reflections on social work responses to human rights violations and reflects on my own activist journey as a way of advancing critical engagement of social workers in issues of global concern. It builds on Eileen Younghusband’s keynote address delivered in 2008 at the IAASW conference.
I have personally traversed a long and bumpy personal and political journey to where I position myself today as an academic activist in the Australian context. The further I travel on this journey, I become increasingly convinced, maybe even doctrinaire, about the moral and ethical duty of social workers to move beyond the realm of everyday practice to explore critical issues that impact on the wellbeing of our nations and the world at large, however small the contribution. Although social work has a courageous reputation in dealing with questions of injustice, this is by no means universal; settings where social work’s political activism is ingrained in its mission are not the majority. Political action can be a contentious and risky business. I believe, however, that in order to create a just and 301 This content downloaded from on All use subject to peaceful world the concerted actions of people, ordinary and extraordinary, are needed to work towards the principle of ‘never again’. In this, social work has much to contribute in both international and local contexts.
My two main areas of social work political endeavour are in the areas of Indigenous rights and asylum seeker rights. In this I am spurred on by the words of Australian Aboriginal activist Lowitja O’Donoghue, who poses the question: ‘How is it that this nation's First Peoples, and its last peoples, should suffer similar indignity?’ (O’Donoghue 2003). These are questions that permeate in too many countries. The question is partly answered by understanding the pervasiveness of Western dominance and how ‘the other’ is represented in societies where power and privilege accorded to ‘the West’ creates a climate of ongoing colonialism where the non-conforming are represented as ignorant, deviant, dark and dangerous. In this, as a global community, we are still so far from recognising Indigenous wisdom or accepting the gifts that those ‘othered’ in mainstream discourses can bring to our societies in order that we can all flourish in inclusiveness.
The focus of my chapter is on the social work response to the here and now, within the supposedly ‘democratic’ west, where the rhetoric of the rule of law is often misleading as it masks pernicious practices that take place under its aegis. In many countries monocultural doctrines are increasingly taking hold and this results in tragic consequences for many groups, damage to the reputation of nations and denigration of the professions which implement the policies arising from such canons. In this way the professions, including social work, are both victim and perpetrator within prevailing paradigms and frameworks. The example of social work resistance and political activism that I will later be drawing upon illustrates a human rights challenge by social work educators the People’s Inquiry into (immigration) Detention in Australia.
But first I widen the context to refer to some of the human rights issues that ought to be of concern to social workers. In doing so I propose four interconnected junctures for social work in carving out its role in the political realm recognising human rights abuses responding through political activism; identifying guiding principles; and responsibility of educators.
