Knowledge from below, knowledge from above: Emerging multiple social work fields in post-Soviet Eurasia

(Considered for symposium: Europe’s transnational social work research history) Kazakhstan, a newly independent post-Soviet state in Eurasia, has experienced major restructuring of its economy, polity, and welfare within a... [ view full abstract ]

(Considered for symposium: Europe’s transnational social work research history)
Kazakhstan, a newly independent post-Soviet state in Eurasia, has experienced major restructuring of its economy, polity, and welfare within a transnational policy context. In welfare provision, there was a shift from the state monopoly on welfare to multiple welfare providers, including the state, the family, the market, and the nonprofit/NGO sector. Part of welfare diversification, there has been the emergence of organizational practices conceptualized as social work: a professional practice which focuses on a certain social issue and/or population; employs direct engagement with an individual/family/group; and is provided by a professional or a designated person within an organizational context. Historically, in the West the social work domain was located in multiple ‘sites of difference’ (Abbott, 1995), a feature that Abbott calls ‘social work of boundaries’. Similarly, different streams of social work practice can be identified within different welfare sectors in Kazakhstan. First, NGOs became increasingly engaged in social service provision, initially supported almost exclusively by international assistance, which had a major impact on the development of social services and social work by shaping priority social issues, target populations, program modalities. On the other hand, within the state welfare sector, the development of social work was linked to the reform of state institutions (e.g., institutions for adults and children with disabilities) and an introduction of social services within these institutions (e.g., day care departments and home care for children with disabilities). Similarly, a public-funded social worker’s position was recently introduced in polyclinics. Drawing upon key informant interviews conducted as part of my doctoral research over the summer of 2012 in Kazakhstan, I will examine how distinct social work fields were shaped by the transnational flow of social work knowledge from above (in the government sector) and from below (in the NGO sector).