"Actor-Network Theory", Use of Actor-Network Theory to help make the "social" in Social Work visible

It is being argued that the ‘social’ in social work, and in what we used to know as social policy, is about to disappear in many countries (Kam 2012). Not only is the concept as such about to disappear in the naming of... [ view full abstract ]

It is being argued that the ‘social’ in social work, and in what we used to know as social policy, is about to disappear in many countries (Kam 2012). Not only is the concept as such about to disappear in the naming of policies, perspectives and institutions, such as is at least the case in Norway, but also the social dimension is said to being diluted through processes like individualization, standardization and the demands for evidence based practice. There is no doubt that these changes are real and that they have profound implications for social work, but do they actually entail a deterioration of the social?

In professional social work discourses there is a contemporary debate about what the ‘social’ in social work is. Programmatic statements from key organizations in the field point to the political aims and duties when emphasizing the importance of the social, while others are more concerned with the relational aspects of social work practice. The meaning of the social has also been questioned in resent sociological debates, not least by representatives of so called action-network theory (ANT). One who has questioned the obvious understanding of the social is Bruno Latour, particularly in his book Reassembling the social (2005). We will, in this paper, discuss what a recasting of the notion of the social by using ANT could mean for social work.

References:
Kam, P.K. (2012): ‘Back to the social of social work. Reviving the social work profession’s
contribution to the promotion of social justice’, International Social Work published online 5 October 2012
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social. An introduction to Actor-Network-Theory.
Oxford: Oxford University press.