This study explores the consequences of the European Union’s fishing agreements with a few African countries for individuals in local communities. The empirical results show that European fishing in African waters has destructive consequences for local fishing communities and leads to increasing migration from fishing communities to Europe where immigrants are facing increasing discrimination. It is argued that social work should consider new global transformations and build global alliances in order to fight against structural inequalities and improve individual life chances.
Riksantikvarieämbetet kraftsamlar kring området värdering och urval. Det behövs mer kunskap om hur kulturarvens värden tas tillvara i arbetet för utvecklingen av ett hållbart samhälle med goda livsmiljöer. Den här boken lyfter angelägna frågor kring kulturarv och kulturarvsaktiviteters värden.
I den växande marginaliseringens bakvatten ökar kriminalitet och motsättningar. Men i stället för att förändra de strukturer som skapar ojämlika villkor i samhället, vill politikerna stävja symtomen genom en ökad polisnärvaro.
The third essay in the volume critiques the tradition of social science meta-narratives that frame modernity as an exclusively western invention, aligned with a linear model of development. The author provides a comprehensive overview of the history of modernization in Iran, examining in particular the changing role of Islam and the relationship between civil society and the state. Kamali argues that the concept of multiple modernities opens the way to generating more socially and historically specific understandings of modernities.
The author challenges the idea of a single and homogeneous modernity. Multiple modernization programs have been launched in many countries in general and in Muslim countries in particular. A great part of the literature on modernization of Muslim countries ignores the multiplicity of modernization processes in those countries. Using Iran as an example, the author presents an alternative theoretical tool for understanding modern developments in Muslim countries. The author argues that Iran did not go through a single modernization program, but several, and was affected by many factors such as Western interventions and wars, internal socioeconomic and cultural transformations, and the emergence of new political groups and ideologies. Among others, Islamic groups and parties have been engaged in modern economic, political and sociocultural transformations. A genuine democratic system therefore should include Islamic groups and parties in order to strengthen and legitimize democratic systems.
The concept of multiple modernities is increasingly influential in mainly Western academic circles. Although the multiple modernities thesis challenges established West-centric understandings of the modern world, it also risks praising ‘the modern’ as the end of history and our preordained destiny. Multiple modernities’ global history cannot be separated from the colonialism, slavery, wars and exploitation that have formed our modern world and its inequalities. The multiple modernities thesis also illuminates a cultural and religious battlefield in which a Western concept of linear modernity, with a ‘developmental path’ that should be followed by all countries, is highly contested. The division of societies into the dichotomous categories of modern versus traditional – a legacy of the ‘grand narratives’ of classical social theory – also creates the foundation for other divisions, including the dichotomy of the modern Christian ‘Us’ versus the traditional Muslim ‘Them’. Such West-centric history-telling is part of a field of cultural authority in which the battle over the right to shape the past and present of various societies is taking place. There is no singular model of modernity; global modernization programs and processes have taken place in a variety of cultural and political environments, creating multiple models of modernity. This article critically explores the shortcomings of the West-centric theory of singular modernity. By focusing on the modern transformation of mass communication in Muslim countries, it argues that both traditional means of mass communication, such as manbars, and modern media, such as newspapers and tape recorders, have been used effectively for mobilization of masses by revolutionary Muslim groups. It also argues that Islam is not incompatible with modernity or democracy, and that Islamic groups have been an integral part of modern democratic developments in Muslim countries.
Förord: "Antologin Platsens mänskliga berättelse har kommit till inom ramen för länsstyrelsernas projekt Kalejdoskop - sätt att se på kulturarvet. En viktig aspekt av projektet har varit att utmana bilden av ett homogent Sverige och visa upp en bredd i vår historieskrivning genom att lyfta fram dolda och förbisedda platser och berättelser."
This book analyses the role of war and violence (in both its physical and symbolic forms) for social work in a time of neoliberal globalisation from a social justice perspective. It argues that the consequences of wars, in both their old and new forms, and the exercise of symbolic violence for the practices of social work at national and global levels have been ignored. This work explores the relationship between recent neoliberal and global transformations and their consequences for intensifying 'new wars' and conflicts in non–Western countries on the one hand, and the increasing symbolic violence against marginalised people with immigrant and non–Western background in many Western countries, on the other. The analytical approach of the book, based on the theories of multiple modernities and symbolic violence, is unique since no other work has applied such theoretical perspectives for analysing inequalities in relation to the condition of lives of non–Western people living in Western and non–Western countries. This is a necessary contribution for social work education and research since the discipline needs new theoretical perspectives to be able to meet the new challenges raised by recent global transformations and neoliberal globalisation.
How have three decades of neoliberalism affected the Nordic welfare states as well as the organisation, education and practices of social work in those countries?
During recent decades the welfare states of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have gone through dramatic changes infl uenced by the political triumph of neoliberalism. This has led to both the electoral success of extreme right and mainstream neoliberal parties, and to the neoliberal ideological transformations of social democratic parties. The neoliberal doctrine of making governance cheaper has thus been made the focus of governance and has led to increased marginalisation and social problems.
This is the first book to comparatively explore the role of neoliberal reforms on social work and social policy across the Nordic welfare states. The richly theoretical and empirical chapters explore and illustrate the consequences of the dominance of neoliberal policies and provide an analysis of the effects of globalisation, glocalisation, welfare nationalism, symbolic violence and forced migration. The book provides valuable insights into the shortcomings of retreating welfare states in a time of increasing glocal social problems.
Neoliberalism, Nordic Welfare States and Social Work should be considered essential reading for critical social work education. Students, scholars, educators and researchers of Nordic countries and beyond have much to learn from this book.