'A World to Win': In Defence of (Dissenting) Social Work - A Response to Chris Maylea

Abstract

This article is a response to Chris Maylea’s lively call to ‘end of social work’. Whilst welcoming the publication of his polemic, I maintain that there are substantial problems with his lines of analysis. Problematic facets of his article are enmeshed with questions of timing, tonality and positionality. It is also possible to identify significant evidential flaws in the bald assertion that social workers present a ‘real threat to people’. What is more, Maylea’s inadvertently risks aiding the project of the neoliberal Right. Critically engaging with the notion that there are ‘four key reasons’ necessitating the abolition of profession, I make an alternative case for reanimated and reenergised forms of ‘dissenting social work’.