Mid Sweden University

Challenging Social Work through Global Climate Change perspectives

As Climate Change can be understood as one of the major factors impacting on peoples´ living conditions and possibilities to access basic rights, both globally and locally, Social Work practice and research meets a huge challenge in integrating new environmental perspectives as well as responding to the human and social consequences of climate change, affecting individuals and societies. Additionally, continuing imperialism, global neo-liberal and marked-oriented developments pose a risk for essentializing discourses (Sewpaul 2016, 2013) within Social work, individualizing, medicalizing, culturizing and depoliticizing social problems (Morley 2016), neglecting the “social question” (Lorenz 2016) and interlinkage of the global and the local, and by that otherizing it.

 The general idea of this PhD project is to challenge boarders and boundaries found around and within the profession and research field of social work through extending the understanding how climate change in a profound way is connected to social work and the challenges and responsibilities as a human right profession to work for social & ecological justice as well as attending to the (climate-change related) causes of social problems.

 Using critical, glocal and post-colonial perspectives, the identification of social work as a purely social science-oriented profession and research area is challenged (a challenge which also could be argued from the Global Agenda (2012) as well as the Global Social Work Statement of Ethical Principles (2018; IASSW). This could implicate that Social work practice, policy and research should confront dividing forces instead of withdrawing itself from both the political and other public arenas.

 This PhD-project focuses on different aspects of the climate change-social work relationship, investigating different approaches used today, giving an overview on the relevant theoretical perspectives and practical implications for social work as well as lining out central developments (Mason, Shires, Arwood & Borst 2017; Gray, Coates & Hetherington 2013).

 A second article aims to examine if and in which way Swedish local politicians in responsible positions for social work issues understand their own role concerning awareness and preparedness with respect to different perspectives. In which ways is e.g. the issue of climate change as a threat for basic human, social and ecological rights targeted? What measurements are taken in order to prevent or to minimize negative impacts of climate change for different groups in society? One area of study will focus on how politicians reason around climate change directly and indirectly affecting the Swedish society and population (e.g. through fires, droughts, sea level rising, floods or climate refugees, changed patterns of global trade) and what implications these challenges might have on social work practice. The second area of study focuses on ethics and personal/professional choices through patterns of consumption, use of resources, financing etc.

 A third article intends in a similar way to focus on social work practitioners’ preventative and interventive work on local level in relation to the above mentioned climate change issues. Focus will be put on local social workers involved with either migration related issues or being in a high profile position as heads of departments.

 The fourth and last article will discuss innovative ways how to work with Climate Change and Social Work using arts-based methods (Huss & Bos 2018), following a Music project touring through Sweden, performing as well as creating spaces for reflection and discussion in the point of intersection between Climate Change, Globalization and Social Work.

Analysansats med hjälp av dataprogrammet NUD*IST, försök till skapande av miniteori genom en induktiv ansats och sedan en kritisk reflektion av för-respektive nackdelarna av NUD*IST-programmet som analysverktyg.

Reflecting upon the theme of this year’s conference “Redefining Social Policy and Social Work Practice in A Post-Pandemic Society: Social Welfare Programs and Social Work Education at A Crossroads”, Climate Change, as one of the major factors impacting on people’s living conditions and possibilities to access basic rights, shows not only through higher temperatures or sea level rising, but results also in a considerably higher risk for future pandemics. Discussing the challenges of a post-pandemic society to Social Work, we must therefore be aware that Climate Change will by far exceed the consequences of the pandemic we just experienced.

 Social workers consequently need to become aware of and strengthen their knowledge about Climate Change in order to address the multiplicity of precursors to and consequences of Climate Change and prepare for a society in Climate Crisis.

 The latest IPCC-report (2022) poses a direct urge for every part of (local) society to take on its responsibilities. This obviously applies even to Social Work. Social workers agree, but rarely see concrete opportunities to do climate-related work within their job description.

 A variety of researchers have drawn attention to the need for radical changes in social work and social work education towards more critical and climate justice conscious perspectives (e.g. Dominelli 2020, Ouis & Cuadra 2021). Also the re-politicization of social work is increasingly seen as essential if social workers are to be able to educate and engage with the climate crisis within the narrow window of opportunity that remains.

 Green social work, with its embeddedness in the realities of people’s lives and its holistic, social justice approach develops a new paradigm for critical theorists and practioners in social work as it is urging to include environmental justice as a part of social justice, putting emphasis on the interrelatedness and interdependency between the planet and its inhabitants (IFSW’s Climate Justice Progam; Dominelli 2019).

 Social Work practice and research meets a huge challenge in integrating these new environmental perspectives, working with behaviors and lifestyles as well as responding to the human and social consequences of climate change. Social workers need to become aware of and strengthen their knowledge about Climate Change in order to address the multiplicity of precursors to and consequences of Climate Change and prepare for a society in Climate Crisis.

 This paper addresses the possible roles and professional self-understanding of Social workers in relation to Climate Change through critical perspectives and empirically based studies. It reveals how Swedish social workers reason around Climate Change directly and indirectly affecting themselves and the people they are professionally engaged with and how they understand their own professional role. Social workers emphasize the importance of a holistic, collaborative, empowering and repoliticized social work, new strategies, appropriate arenas and possibly the need for a shift in perspective towards structural and community based social work.

As climate change is linked with the day-to-day struggles of people that social workers engage with, it has direct and immediate relevance for the profession. This ongoing study explores in which ways social workers are conscious of and integrate climate change discourses and interventions into their daily work as a part of a re-politicizing and emancipatory social work approach.  

Method: So far, 12 semi-structured interviews with social workers have been conducted.  

Findings: The urgency of the issue is strongly felt in many of their (private) consciousnesses and climate-related adaptations are also listed in the professional context. However, these changes are not seen as sufficient to significantly reduce the footprint, and the issue of climate change is not actively addressed. SW's express that they see no scope for thinking or acting on climate-related issues. The neoliberalisation of the "social market" is seen by most as restrictive, as is the increasingly individualised nature of work. As a result of NPM, SW's describe their tasks being increasingly specified, fragmented and manual based, leading to a limitation of their ability to act. They express a lack of both knowledge and tools to work on the topic and call for clear elements in training and continuing education.

Conclusion: SW's need to further engender consciousness and facilitate change towards a reconceptualization of social work as a politicized profession so that they can address the multiplicity of precursors to and consequences of Climate Change in order to prepare for a society in Climate Crisis. 

An over-consumptive neoliberal world, fuelled largely by media messages that insidiously lead people to define their worth by their purchasing choices and purchasing power, is contributing to the destruction of the planet and pushing the Earth beyond acceptable tipping points, posing grave threats to human and planetary well-being. If social work is to play a meaningful role in challenging the hegemony of neoliberalism and human-induced climate change and their disastrous consequences, it must disarticulate itself from modernist, positivist orientations and embrace an emancipatory praxis with a focus on the politicisation of the self and of the profession. Emancipatory praxis holds the potential to combine a spiritual cosmocentricism, based on self-enlightenment and altered conceptualisations of self, other and nature, and the pragmatic aspects of liberation in freeing ourselves from cultural, political and capitalistic ideological hegemony to enable shifts towards ecosocial justice.

The climate crisis is accelerating even quicker than feared and has devastating consequences for nature, animals and the people, especially people that social workers engage with. Sweden has, despite severe cutdowns, an international reputation for being a sucessful welfare state and it has  a strong self-conceptualisation as being a role model for environmental sustainability. Yet, Swedes have one of the highest ecological footprints on earth on account of high consumption rates. The 2022 People’s Charter exhort social workers across the globe to embrace  eco-social justice and environmental sustainability, with the first call to action framed as Ecological integrity: From exploitation to recognising the rights of nature for sustainable co-existence. This presentation, drawn from qualitative research with social workers in Sweden, highlights the gaps between global rhetoric and on the ground realities, and the huge chasm between social worker’s commitment to climate justice on a personal level and their professional practice. The empirical data show that while social workers are aware of the importance of responding to climate change, they see the call to action as being far removed from the demands of daily practice. There are strong indications that individualization, specialization and the impositions of efficiency and narrowly defined outcomes, which are features of neoliberalism and new public management, influence social workers’ scope of work in decided ways. We discuss the implications of these for the politization of social work and the importance of an emancipatory praxis in social work education and practice.