Exploring Social Work

Thisunique study of social work provides a bold and challenging view of the subjectfrom an anthropological perspective, combining research and personalreflection, it explores cultural and symbolic representations of social work,evolving identities of social work practitioners and the ways in which they andsociety now view one another.

Whatis 'social work' and who are 'social workers'? Whilst social workers areinevitably fixed on 'the social', they are increasingly working in contextswhere 'evidence' is also based epistemologically within the clinical sciences(e.g. brain science as applied to child development). Like anthropology, socialwork thus needs to address both the 'social' and the 'clinical'.

Basedon a range of primary and secondary sources and her own reflections andexperiences, Bell argues that social work, seen as occupation(s) and asidentity (or set of identities) reveals specific cultural and symbolicrepresentations. The book explores aspects of social work cultures and(cross)cultural representation(s), showing from an outsider's perspectiveexamples of how members of this occupational group see the world, and how theirworld views can affect their practice, suggesting implications of thesepractices for wider society.