Social work and “the social”: a biopolitical perspective

Abstract

ABSTRAKT Amid the uncertainty of the current political context and an unprecedented institutional crisis in European welfare, this article offers a theoretical analysis of the problems arising from the historical reshaping of social work as a biopolitical organ of the state. It undertakes this analysis from a biopolitical perspective and asks how this framework can help us in defining the specific features of social work intervention in family life? To properly answer, the article proposes a methodological understanding which explicates a series of relations between “biopolitics – the social – social work”. To this end, supported by analyses from Foucault and Donzelot, the article shows how social work as a form of state governmentality intervenes in the lives of families to normalise behaviour and conduct. From a critical vantage point, these findings compel us to re-examine the problem of consent and consensus when working with service users and families in the midst of an increasingly more controlling authoritarian social work.