1. On the Origin of Social Work Vito Flaker University of Colombo December 2008

2. The phylum of help Turn of the Century Industrial society Early bourgeois society Feudalism Social work Philanthropy Indirect charity Immediate charity

3. GroupCarerLegal codeConfinement place Ideology WorkersCapitalist Trade unions Labour Law Social security Factories Workers’ settlements Production CriminalsJudge Police Guard Criminal LawPrisonsCorrection ChildrenParents Teachers Compulsory schooling SchoolsEducation The madPsychiatristMental Health Legislation MadhousesCure BeggarsMatrons and masters »Social« Legislation (New Poor Law) WorkhousesCharitiy Work Tutelarian (Caring) professions

4. The crisis of institutions and creation of the social. Romanticism to realism Liberalism to socialism Sociology and Psychology Social action

5. A minor profession of transgression Women’s profession Not temple, no jargon, no territory – working on the people’s turf

6. Transgression Going across professional boundaries

7. Functionaries of consent in the welfare state Main profession of social care Persuading: –To enter the institution –Their own guilt Giving tokens But also dissent: –Closeness –Going native (e.g. subcultures)

8. Academisation and dissent as conditions for the science of social work Growth of welfare state Role of sociologists and psychologists Attractive arena of practical social critique Modern social work concepts –Dialogue, empowerment, innovation, advocacy, life-world, social construction and deconstruction, reflection etc. are concepts built on dissent

9. 1. social work connects to a long line of solidarity, compassion, philanthropy or simply help - it is its modern articulation through professionalisation and situatedness within the space between –solidarity and help, mutuality and altruism, the state and community, enables responses to social distress –not only relieve the distress while simultaneously maintaining the status quo, –also provide space for essential changes and improvements in people's social lives.

10. 2. Social work is one of the tutelarian professions, developed in the bourgeois regime in order to compensate the subjectivity or lack of the contractual power its special characteristic being that it started to emerge at the time of the crisis of liberal capitalism and the institutional system of care and was grounded in extra-institutional action and an engaged re-creation of the social.

11. 3. Social work as a minor, female profession and science is oriented to minorities and above all it has no solid institutional apparatus to enable its own esoteric technical language and rules. it is, by definition, a transgression from the institutional into the social depending on pragmatics and reflexivity without any a priori set codes.

12. 4. With the emergence of the welfare state which social work becomes a pervasive profession, in its classical variation as one of the ways of providing social consent, and in its radical variation the articulation of the dissent of social minorities.

13. 5. Apart from becoming a profession, social work is also becoming a science through research, the academising of education and the need for the scientific argumentation of the dissent in which it gets involved.

14. Towards a genealogical definition of social work Social work is a modern professional and scientific articulation of issues of solidarity and help which goes beyond the alleviation of distress by creating social inventions; it is one of the caring professions that enables contractual subjectivity but without a necessary institution which is why it is minor, sensitive to the small and soft issues of everyday life; it works within the welfare state yet not only to guarantee consent but also to affirm dissent – which is why it necessarily creates rhizomatic conceptual network apparatus based on the co-operation of all actors and other scientific disciplines.

15. International definition of social work The social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation to enhance well-being. Utilising theories of human behaviour and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental to social work. »International Federation of Social Workers, 2001