A World to Win': In Defence of (Dissenting) Social Work-A Response to Chris Maylea
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British Journal of Social Work (2021) 51, 1131–1149
doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcab009
Advance Access Publication February 2, 2021
‘A World to Win’: In Defence of
(Dissenting) Social Work—A Response
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to Chris Maylea
Paul Michael Garrett
School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland, University Road,
Galway, Ireland
*Correspondence to Paul Michael Garrett, School of Political Science and Sociology,
National University of Ireland, University Road, Galway, Ireland. E-mail:
PM.Garrett@nuigalway.ie
Abstract
This article is a response to Chris Maylea’s lively call to ‘end of social work’. Whilst
welcoming the publication of his polemic, I maintain that there are substantial prob-
lems with his lines of analysis. Problematic facets of his article are enmeshed with
questions of timing, tonality and positionality. It is also possible to identify significant
evidential flaws in the bald assertion that social workers present a ‘real threat to peo-
ple’. What is more, Maylea’s inadvertently risks aiding the project of the neoliberal
Right. Critically engaging with the notion that there are ‘four key reasons’ necessitat-
ing the abolition of profession, I make an alternative case for reanimated and re-
energised forms of ‘dissenting social work’.
Keywords: dissenting social work, history, neoliberalism, professionalism, theory
Accepted: January 2021
Introduction
Targeting a flamethrower at social work, whilst also being ensconced as
a senior lecturer in a university’s department of social work and human
Note
1. Henceforth, for ease of reference, I will only refer to the relevant page numbers in the Maylea
piece.
# The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The
British Association of Social Workers.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which
permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
www.basw.co.uk the original work is properly cited.1132 Paul Michael Garrett
services, Chris Maylea (2020) may risk setting fire to, or at least singe-
ing, his own beard. Social work is variously described as beyond ‘repair’
and ‘saving’, ‘toothless’ (p. 3) and ‘hypocritical’ (p. 9) (Maylea, 2020, pp.
2, 3, 9) (1). Everyone, including new student entrants to global social
work courses, needs to hear the truth: ‘Social work is stuck and it has
failed’ (p. 6, original emphases). Displaying ‘decrepit obsolescence’ (p.
13), it is ‘dying profession’ (p. 9) deserving to be ‘pushed into the sea’
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(p. 2). We get it. However, whilst giving off the whiff of an intemperate
and extended blog post, the article was deservedly published by the
BJSW. Perhaps, partly undermining aspects of Maylea’s analysis, a more
elitist, complacent and insular journal is unlikely to have published this
bombastic, but significant, contribution.
Written with verve, Maylea’s contribution concisely makes a number of
vital, if not entirely new, points (Clarke, 1996; Schram and Silverman, 2012;
Dettlaff et al., 2020). His article should be essential reading for students and
others interested in the direction of social work. He is seeking to provoke
responses from the journal’s readership and in this contribution, whilst ac-
knowledging his productive insights, I will highlight what fundamental prob-
lems with this likeable author’s perspective. My response article consists of
five components. First, I comment on issues circulating around timing, tonal-
ity and positionality. Second, attention switches to the assertion that social
workers present a ‘real threat to people’ (p. 8). Third, it is suggested that
Maylea polemic may aid the project of the neoliberal right and their assaults
on state social work and the structures of welfare housing it. Fourth, the fo-
cus is on the ‘four key reasons’ providing a basis for the ‘end of social
work’ (p. 1). Finally, in refusing to endorse the call for abolition, I make the
case for what I term ‘dissenting social work’ (DSW) (Garrett, 2021).
Timing, tonality and the world beyond Port Phillip Bay
Published ten months into the dreadful COVID-19 pandemic, a some-
times flippant call to abolish a profession in which millions of ‘essential’
workers are placing their lives in jeopardy can appear, at best, clumsily
ill-timed (Samuel, 2020a; Silman, 2020). In these immensely difficult
times, the strident tone of the article might have been honed to better
take into account of present conjuncture and its novel dilemmas (Davis,
2020). Incisive critique should always be encouraged, but when social
workers are exposing themselves to great risk by simply going about
their daily tasks, a slightly sneering tone is not entirely to be welcomed
(British Association of Social Workers (BASW), 2021).
Across the globe and even prior to the pandemic, many practitioners
have tenaciously held onto the progressive ethics expressed in the
International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) definition and have
relentlessly tried to pursue social justice aims and aspirations. As NajwaA World to Win 1133
Sadfadi and her colleagues observe in this journal, Palestinian social
workers, for example, exhibit tremendous commitment whilst being com-
pelled to ‘operate in extremely difficult social conditions (e.g. hyper-
unemployment, deep levels of poverty, severe restrictions on movement,
poor sanitation, political violence). . .caused or magnified by Israeli mili-
tary occupation’ (Safadi et al., 2020, p. 14). Across a larger canvas,
partly prompted by the economic and social order sustained by neoliber-
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alism and the frustration and the anger that it ignites and sustains,
reports also indicate that social workers may be becoming increasingly
subject to intimidation and violence (Floman, 2018; Baker, 2020).
Given the gender composition of the workforce across the globe, any
critique directed at social work—as a discipline and series of practices—
is also targeted at mostly women workers. In the USA, for example,
82.1 per cent of social workers are females (DATAUSA, 2020) and this,
in general, reflects the situation elsewhere. In the People’s Republic of
China (PRC), social work is mostly carried out by women. In
Guangdong, for example, 70 per cent of social workers have been
reported to be female (Cho, 2017, p. 282). Given such figures, so strident
an appeal to extinguish the profession by a male social work educator is
rather jarring. A deeper interrogation of the author’s positionality might
have enhanced his critique.
Relatedly, there might have been more acknowledgement that the po-
lemic is emerging from a particular place—Melbourne in Australia. The
world, and social work’s place within it, may look somewhat different
beyond Port Philip Bay. Although it is not reflected in the abrupt title
of his article, Maylea partly recognises this criticism when he notes that
other ‘social works exist in a diversity of countries’ (p. 3). Hence, his fo-
cus is on ‘professional social work in the Anglophone world, primarily
the UK, USA and Australia’ since they represent ‘both the largest popu-
lation of professional social workers and the profession of social work’s
geographical home’ (p. 3). Nevertheless, there are still problems with
this tactic.
First, and leaving aside the fact that social work in the ‘Anglophone
world’ is riddled with complex differences, it is no longer intellectually
tenable to simply screen out social work across the rest of the globe. As
the Indian historian Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000, p. xiii) cautions, percep-
tions and paradigms drawn from particular cultural, intellectual and his-
torical traditions are likely to lack ‘universal validity’ even if such
validity is only implied. Secondly, in terms of numbers game, the PRC
will ‘soon possess the most social workers in the world’ (Cheung, 2017,
p. 109). A licencing system has been in place since 2008, and, in 2010, it
was predicted that there would be a need for 2 million social workers by
2015 and 3 million by 2020. In 2012, this was revised to 0.5 and 1.5 mil-
lion, respectively (Leung and Xu, 2015, p. 157). Still, even this revised
figure considerably swells the global social work community; in the1134 Paul Michael Garrett
USA, for example, currently there are only approximately 871,000 social
workers (DATAUSA, 2020). Indeed, in the not-too-distant future, dis-
cussing the characteristics and trajectory of social work without examin-
ing the profession in the PRC will be akin to talking about making
omelettes without mentioning eggs (Garrett, 2020).
Social work as a ‘real threat to people’: Re-visiting the
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evidence
Occasionally, Maylea’s deployment of evidence is distorted to help com-
pile the ‘rap sheet’ against social work. Readers are advised, for exam-
ple, that ‘irrespective’ of their ‘espoused intentions or reflective skills’
social workers represent a ‘real threat to people’ on account of their
‘professional role and association with the apparatus of the state’ (p. 8).
This assertion reflects a complex reality, but can what appears as a
throwaway remark be empirically grounded? Can we identify and quan-
tify those individuals and groups viewing social work as a ‘real threat’?
Who might they be and where are they located? What of those who do
not view social work as a threat, but who feel deprived of or lack access
to social work services on account of neoliberal ‘austerity’ measures?
Appearing to simply report the work of Barbara Staniforth and her
colleagues, Maylea suggests that social workers are perceived in the
‘community, as “stealing or removing kids”, “do-gooders”, “interfering/
busy bodies”. . .The very presence of a social worker is likely to be
threatening for communities with historical trauma caused or abetted by
social workers’ (p. 8). However, undertaken in Aotearoa New Zealand,
Staniforth et al.’s (2016) research actually paints a rather different, more
complex and interesting picture. Their research comprised two compo-
nents: one examining the ‘public perceptions’ of social work derived
from almost 400 telephonic interviews; the other focussing on a similar
number of social workers asked to provide their views on what they be-
lieve the public perceptions are of their roles. These researchers con-
clude that the social worker participants, perhaps mindful of the critical
political and media representations, ‘held a poorer impression of what
the public believed, in comparison with the actual public opinions
expressed’ (Staniforth et al., 2016, p. 23). More specifically and contrary
to Maylea’s account, the granular detail of this research endeavour
makes it clear that it was the social workers and not the public who pro-
vided the more critical evocations of social work: forty-one practitioners
felt of that they were likely to be perceived as figures who went about
‘stealing/removing children’ whilst thirty-seven thought that social work-
ers would be viewed as ‘do gooders’ and thirty-one were of the opinion
that they would be regarded ‘interfering/busy bodies’. It is wholly false
to maintain that these are—as Maylea would have us believe—A World to Win 1135
‘community’ perceptions. Rather, community perceptions associate social
work with the following, generally laudatory words and phrases: ‘helper’
(n. 165), ‘meets special needs’ (n. 41), ‘children/youth help’ (n. 34),
‘meets specific community needs’ (n. 34), ‘Children Youth and Family/
Work and Income’ (n. 31), ‘Counseller/someone who listens’ (n. 22), and
‘Caring’ (n. 13). Here, I am not arguing, of course, that social workers
are not part of the ‘apparatus’ of the neoliberal state as Maylea main-
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tains, but I am suggesting that a closer reading of Staniforth et al. (2016)
reveals a different picture to that illuminated in the glare of his flame-
thrower. What is more, a good deal of evidence emerging from other
jurisdictions indicates that social work is viewed as a much more benign
and less threating force than he suggests (Research Works Limited,
2001; LeCroy and Stinson, 2004; Davidson and King, 2005).
‘Really enjoyed this. . .great challenge and great writing’:
Inadvertently aiding the neoliberal project
Maylea (2020, p. 3) argues that his article ‘must not be construed as pro-
gressing the conservative agenda to depoliticise or abolish social work’.
Indeed, the tone of the piece indicates that the author perceives himself
as being on what might be loosely described as the ‘Left’. Much of the
article’s reasoning, however, is compatible with the neoliberal project.
In the late 1970s, in his ‘Birth of Biopolitics’ lecture series, Foucault
(2008, p. 45) presciently identified one of the core neoliberal aspirations.
Governments must not, ‘form a counterpoint or a screen. . .between soci-
ety and economic processes’. Neither must they seek to ‘correct the de-
structive effects of the market on society’. According to this radical
neoliberal agenda, the main function of governments is, in fact, ‘to inter-
vene on society so that competitive mechanisms can play a regulatory
role at every moment and every point in society’ thus ensuring ‘a gen-
eral regulation of society by the market’ (p. 145). David Harvey (2005)
refers to the social settlement that the neoliberals were intent on
destroying as one of ‘embedded liberalism’ in which ‘market processes
and entrepreneurial and corporate activities were surrounded by a web
of social and political constraints and a regulatory environment that
sometimes restrained. . .economic and industrial strategy’. In contrast,
the neoliberal project seeks to ‘disembed capital from these constraints’
(Harvey, 2005, p. 11). Thus, to different degrees, depending on the spe-
cific cultural and national context, neoliberalism endeavours to ‘strip
away the protective coverings that embedded liberalism allowed and oc-
casionally nurtured’ (Harvey, 2005, p. 168).
For all the limitations, including the pernicious patriarchal and racial-
ised structures and operational modalities, public sector social work
was—and remains—part of this fabric and ‘protective covering’. Hence,1136 Paul Michael Garrett
it is an anathema for those keen to champion the newer, harsher regime
of capital accumulation. In short, public sector social work is hated and
despised by neoliberals in the West because, in complex and often con-
tradictory ways, it embodies the social democratic welfare state which
has to be dismantled. This destructive neoliberal project has contributed
to our collective inability to respond adequately to COVID-19 because
‘privations and the insufficient satisfaction of vital needs are what pre-
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pare the frame for contagion’ and make epidemics ‘widespread and ter-
rible’ (Engels, 2009 [1845], p. 131; Harvey, 2020).
Although manifestly articulated from an entirely difficult political po-
sition, Maylea’s contribution has deep affinities with the project of the
neoliberal Right, yet he insufficiently acknowledges and interrogates this
troubling dimension. Indicatively, within days of the online publication
of his article and evidently unconcerned by some of the evidential flaws
mentioned earlier, Isabelle Trowler, (2020), a consultant appointed in
2013 to be ‘Chief Social Worker for Children and Families’ by the UK
Conservative Government gushed: ‘Really enjoyed this. Great challenge
and great writing’. However, albeit discursively orchestrated in terms of
professional reform and renewal, Trowler is a notable and longstanding
advocate of neoliberal outsourcing and the privatisation of social work
services for children (Goodman and Trowler, 2011). Maylea might wish
to scrutinise the political cast of the individuals, forces and tendencies so
keen to cheer him on and praise his gleeful acumen with the flame-
thrower (Lenin, 1981 [1920]).
In many jurisdictions state social work is a product and signifier of the
welfare state and as such it must be preserved. My concern is that the
occasionally flippant style and content of Maylea’s contribution runs po-
litically counter to the struggles of trade unionists and student groups
who, throughout past decades, have organised and campaigned to safe-
guard social work programmes under threat within neoliberal and corpo-
ratized universities (Stevenson, 2017). At risk of inflating its significance,
Maylea’s polemic might also be used to bolster further moves to defund
social work and denude it of resources.
‘Four key reasons’ to abolish social work: Re-visiting the
‘rap sheet’
I will now briefly turn to examine the ‘four key reasons’ that allegedly con-
stitute the irresolvable ‘fundamental flaws of social work’. Supplementary
to the ‘threat’ that practitioners pose to ‘people’ these are associated with:
‘historical stains’ (pp. 9–11), ‘irreconcilable theoretical tensions’ (pp. 5–7);
‘professional problems’ (pp. 7–9); and a debilitating ‘failure to rise to con-
temporary challenges’ (pp. 11–12). Maylea’s diagnosis is frequentlyA World to Win 1137
persuasive, but his solution to some of the problems identified is, certainly
for this reader, frequently muddled and unconvincing.
Historical abuses
One of the most convincing and compelling aspects of Maylea’s article
is his concise cataloguing of how social work has colluded with the
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harms caused to minority ethnic populations. Social work has also func-
tioned to bolster colonial practices against Indigenous and Aboriginal
peoples in places as far apart as the continent of Africa, Canada,
Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and Greenland. This is a significant
dimension that needs to incorporated into social work education to chal-
lenge any simplistic tendencies to promote, what might be termed, an
‘angels discourse’, where untarnished social workers are viewed as being
outside of structures responsible for exploitation, domination and, in-
deed, annihilation (Canadian Association of Social Workers (CASW),
2019).
Ioakimidis and Trimikliniotis (2020, p. 3) refer to the ‘troubled past’
of social work that is often occluded in many mainstream accounts. It is
possible, they avow, to identify many instances of ‘complicity, or at least
acquiescence, in acts of state violence and institutionalised oppression’
(Ioakimidis and Trimikliniotis (2020, p. 2; see also Lavalette and
Ioakimidis, 2011). Perhaps, the most glaring example are the practices
of social workers and social pedagogues in Nazi Germany (Kunstreich,
2003). Over decades, social workers were often complicit in
processes implementing eugenicist policies and contributed to the
identification of the supposedly racially ‘inferior’ and socially ‘unworthy’.
Eugenics—to resort to a more contemporary lexicon—undergirded
‘evidenced-based’ social work in a number of states (Broberg and Roll-
Hansen, 1996).
More recently, ‘mainstream white South African social work, which
had largely accepted segregationist ideologies well before 1948, readily
adopted the practices of racial separation’ that culminated with the crea-
tion of Apartheid (Ioakimidis and Trimikliniotis (2020, p. 6). What is
more, the ‘idea of developing the social work profession was itself con-
ceived and nurtured by military regimes’ in Greece, Argentina and Chile
(Ioakimidis and Trimikliniotis, 2020, p. 5). All of these instances prompt
the same question: why did social workers consent, when their ethical
foundations strongly suggest their response should have been one of
organised and collective dissent?
A stark weakness of Maylea’s article is the lack of intellectual curios-
ity about why social workers collude with forms of thinking and forms
of practice which seem entirely antithetical to their expressed ethics and
values. To simply band around castigatory words, such as such1138 Paul Michael Garrett
‘hypocritical’, is insufficient and fails to aid our understanding (p. 9). In
contrast, Yu (2006), also based in Australia, provides a fascinating ac-
count of the social work response to the imposition of martial law in the
Philippines by Marcos in 1972. This action appears to have struck at the
very core values of the profession and should have ‘elicited an unequivo-
cally critical response’ (Yu, 2006, p. 259) However, as it is apparent
from his survey of the flagship journal of the Philippine Association of
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Social Workers, ‘human rights violations under martial law were never
directly questioned or contested by the mainstream social work commu-
nity’ and ‘discourses on the virtues of Marcos’ New Society and social
work’s role in the new order abounded’ (Yu, 2006, p. 259). Yu, whose
study may have more universal resonances and messages for social work
today, speculates that this response may have been attributable to issues
pertaining to personal safety, inadequate theoretical orientation, the
dominance of a value-free technological culture, efforts to protect the
boundaries of the profession and an ideological match between the
Marcos regime and the class imperatives of social workers.
Turning to our contemporary neoliberal period, it is also important to
recognise that practitioner and educator workplaces can be locations of
tenacious solidarity, but they can also be tough environments in which
questioning, but isolated individuals can be subjected to intimidation
and legal sanction. Arguably, recent developments, such as mandatory
professional registration may also engender a certain nervousness inhib-
iting dissenting and critical thought and practice (McLaughlin, 2010).
Significantly, Black and ethnic minority social workers are over-
represented in ‘fitness to practice’ cases adjudicated on by the Social
Work England regulatory authority (Samuel, 2020b). Clearly, there is a
material base governing one’s consideration of whether or not to express
and act on dissent. In some instances, there may be fear of losing one’s
job or of becoming ostracised or bullied in a particular office or work-
place. Many students now enter their first social work job weighed down
by debts incurred because of college tuition fees and the exorbitant rents
demanded by rapacious landlords. Clearly, debt and related problems
might tip the potential dissenter to act, but it might also materially co-
erce them into grudging compliance.
Theoretical tensions
Contrary to the perceptions articulated in the Maylea article, rather than
functioning as a deficiency, a diversity of theoretical orientations and ‘di-
vergent ontologies’ within social work might be interpreted as something
to be encouraged (p. 7). All ‘fields’ give rise to competition and struggle
and this can contribute to dynamism and progressive development
(Bourdieu, 1991). Moreover, agonistic engagements are vital in order toA World to Win 1139
preserve the vibrancy of social work. A ‘field’ might perhaps deservedly
be declared dead and toppled into the sea, if it lacks internal debate on
theoretical orientations and related focal issues. Maylea maintains that
social work is a ‘church so broad that it has no walls’ (p. 6). However,
prisons are also constructed with ‘walls’ and as Rancière (1999 [1995])
reminds us there are dangers posed by rigid, arid and stifling consensus.
Such dangers, within the domain schooling, were signalled in September
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2020, in guidance issued by the Department of Education (DoE) in
England and Wales purportedly to ‘help’ school leaders plan the curricu-
lum. Here, it was stated that schools should not ‘under any circumstan-
ces use resources produced by organisations that take extreme political
stances on matters. This is the case even if the material itself is not ex-
treme, as the use of it could imply endorsement or support of the orga-
nisation. Examples of extreme political stances include, but are not
limited to. . .a publicly stated desire to abolish. . .capitalism’ (GOV.UK,
2020).
In strategic terms, lack of theoretical consistency and alignment has
provided an opportunity for some of us to stretch the neoliberal canopy
that houses contemporary social work education. Had ontologies been
less divergent, then attempts to smuggle in critical and radical perspec-
tives are more likely to have been outlawed. This was recognised by, for
example, the Coalition of Anti-Racist Educators and the Black
Educators Alliance, which ignited a campaign against the DoE guidance
(Mohdin, 2020). Furthermore, critical social work educators have a key
role to play in preserving counter-hegemonic and progressive agendas
that constitute the most radical dimensions of the curriculum. Social
work education is also an arena where we can try to counter the dull
compliance that troubled Engels (2009 [1845]) p. 244) in the 1840s when
rudimentary schooling only appeared interested in the ‘dissemination of
the sciences useful to the bourgeoisie’. Given this pernicious context, ed-
ucation was ‘tame, flabby [and] ’and ‘subservient to the ruling politics’.
Here, the aim was merely to promote, that which critical social work ed-
ucation must resist, ‘quiet obedience’ and ‘passivity’.
Such critical approaches should be driven by the accounts and testi-
monies of those who Rancière (1999 [1995]) perceives as having their
‘part’ or ‘share’ in the community denied. If social work educators fail
to meet this challenge, there is a danger that we might merely help to
promote and sustain what Paul Gilroy (2019) aptly terms a ‘carefully-
managed ignorance, a curated ignorance’. Neglecting to be sufficiently
inquisitive can also be connected to Hannah Arendt’s fears about docile
dispositions and ‘thoughtlessness’ (Arendt, 2006 [1963]). For her, the
problem is that ‘thoughtlessness’ erodes the capacity to maintain a ‘sense
of responsibility for broader outcomes’ and it nurtures forms of ‘inertia
and automatic’ behaviour ‘inimical to political freedom and human spon-
taneity’ (Topper, 2011, p. 370). This endeavour to combat1140 Paul Michael Garrett
‘thoughtlessness’ is at the heart of critical social work pedagogy which
can have no truck with notions of ‘ending social work’.
Professional problems
Specifically, in terms of social work education courses, it entirely reason-
able for Maylea to draw attention to how programmes are marketed and
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sold to a potential ‘new generation of social work students’ (p. 8).
Within the corporate university sector, these students—more likely to be
perceived as ‘customers’ within the dominant contemporary lexicon—are
often cynically encouraged to believe that they have much more capacity
to prompt meaningful social change than they actually have. The in-
flated sense of agency is omnipresent in the online marketing of social
work courses. Although not mentioned in the Maylea article, he and his
colleagues at RMIT University maintain that those signing up for social
work courses will go on to have the opportunity to ‘transform lives and
create lasting change’ (RMIT University, 2020). Hardly confined to the
Melbourne suburbs, such an approach to enticing potential new course
entrants is part of a more encompassing neoliberal ideology serving to
promote an ‘unworkable fantasy’ and it can be conceptually interpreted
in terms of Lauren Berlant (2007, p. 300) elegantly terms ‘cruel
optimism’.
More broadly, Kathy Weeks (2011, p. 74) persuasively argues that to-
day, ‘the term “professional” refers more to a prescribed attitude to-
wards work than the status of some work’. According to Foucault,
‘professionalism is in itself “a disciplinary mechanism”; associating spe-
cific practices with particular worker identities, knowledge and rules of
conduct thus legitimising professional authority and activity’ (Powell and
Khan, 2012, p. 137). In the UK, for example, the discourse circulating
around ‘quality’ can partly be interpreted as a re-coding the govern-
ment’s preoccupation with the ‘conduct’ and ‘attitude’ of social workers
(Hanley, 2019). However, Maylea risks collapsing the entire concept of
professionalism into a particular construct of social work professionalism
which has evolved and been nurtured by neoliberal imperatives. There
are other forms of democratic professionalism constantly at war with the
neoliberal variant (Wilding, 1981). Clearly, the ‘field’ of social work, like
universities, are part of the institutional order of capitalism, but they are
also ridden with tensions and contradictions that open up the opportuni-
ties for an ongoing ‘war of position’ and the possibility of progressive so-
cial gains (Gramsci in Forgacs, 1988, p. 222). More fundamentally, even
the seemingly reactionary ‘fields’ contain within them the opportunities
for progressive endeavours (Lenin, 1981 [1920]).
Bourdieu and Wacqaunt argue that a number of previously autono-
mous or quasi-autonomous ‘fields’, such as social work, are becomingA World to Win 1141
contaminated and corroded by neoliberal imperatives. Thus, a transfor-
mation from ‘field’ to ‘apparatus’ occurs when ‘under certain historical
conditions’ all movement and decision-making ‘go exclusively from the
top down’ (Bourdieu in Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2004, p. 102). In other
words, increasingly denuded of democratic content, ‘apparatuses’ are
‘the pathological state of fields’ (Bourdieu in Bourdieu and Wacquant,
2004, p. 102, emphasis added). Given this situation, Wacquant (2009, p.
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285) maintains that it is vital for ‘agents of the state’ to continue to ‘de-
fend the dignity and integrity of their occupations and refuse to let
themselves be roped into assuming degraded versions of social and
health functions that do not properly fall to them’. Within this concep-
tual framing, neoliberal professionalism can be viewed as the managerial
ideology of the social work ‘apparatus’, which amplifies ‘degraded’ ver-
sions of practitioner roles.
If we accept the reasoning of Bourdieu and Wacquant, the task of the
Left becomes, therefore, to defend the progressive and democratic con-
tent of the ‘field’. We ought to be combatting attempts to annihilate the
‘field’ by reducing it to an ‘apparatus’. This is essential because over re-
cent years, the risk of social work being reduced to a merely functional
‘apparatus’ has become magnified across a range of states. This is illus-
trated by the sustained efforts aiming to ensure that educators and prac-
titioners are ideologically ‘safe’ and cleansed of any dissenting or
politically disruptive tendencies (Cunningham and Cunningham, 2008, p.
179). In Ireland, the decision of the social work regulatory body to de-
lete any mention of ‘human rights’ in its revised Code of Professional
Conduct and Ethics’ can be perceived as a product of the ‘apparatus’ as
opposed to the ‘field’ (CORU, 2019). Similarly, in the UK the establish-
ment of ‘Frontline’ as a ‘fast-track’ route into social work for a new ‘of-
ficer class’ also provides a clear example of what is occurring
(MacAlister, 2012; Murphy, 2016).
Failures to rise to contemporary challenges
Maylea correctly identifies how social work’s professional structures
have been tardy or have entirely failed to confront a range of ‘contem-
porary challenges’. Indeed, the evidence is troubling and it is important
to acknowledge that, historically, demands for social justice impacting
within social work have frequently been sparked outside of social work.
In the 1980s, for example, those articulating and organising around a
‘politics of disability (Oliver, 1984) and the mental health system survi-
vors’ movement have been significant (Rogers and Pilgrim, 1989). In
more contemporary terms, there is disturbing research emerging to sub-
stantiate the assertion that social workers may be ideologically ill-
equipped to respondent to ‘challenges’. Jane Fenton (2018), in the UK,1142 Paul Michael Garrett
points to the penetration of neoliberal ideology among social work stu-
dents. Natalie Farmer (2020) highlights how social workers are trans-
mogrifying into ‘border guards’ within more the encompassing
patterning of immigration control. Fazzi and Nothdurfter (2020), in
Italy, have undertaken important research illuminating how some practi-
tioners have been won over by the toxic forces of right-wing populism.
Maylea furnishes only a very shallow account of what may be taking
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place. His polemic simply conveys that sense that social work, seemingly
no longer truly intent on reaching the Promised Land, has betrayed its
sacred ‘mission’ (p. 11). Arguably, this compromised ‘mission’ talk
reflects not only a type of liberal hand-wringing, it is suggestive of dis-
cursive elements integral to the evangelical Christianity that contributed
to the shaping of social work and related forms of charitable endeavour
in the nineteenth century (Bowpitt, 1998). This tonal undercurrent is
reflected in notions circulating around ‘compassionate people’ undertak-
ing ‘vital work’ not in solidarity with the exploited and dominated, but—
somewhat insipidly—for the ‘most disadvantaged’ (p. 2). Evoked by the
metaphor of it being a ‘church’ (p. 6), institutional social work actually
acts as an obstacle standing in the way of those seeking out a ‘more ef-
fective calling’ (p. 9). The notion is also conveyed that ‘beyond’ social
work is to be found a land of unbounded grace: zones of distinction
which are populated by zealous activists and social movements brimming
with purity of intent and entirely unsullied by the occasional need to
strategically compromise with capitalist state power. In contrast, the
British Association of Social Work is chastised for being insufficiently
concerned with the ‘communities we serve’ and for being far too preoc-
cupied with profane and lowly issues relating to the ‘working conditions’
of its members (p. 8).
More fundamentally, Maylea’s valorisation of an idealised and inade-
quately conceptualised ‘beyond’ social work in a ‘post-social work world’
leads us into a cul-de-sac (p. 5). Worse, it gives succour to the political
forces that he is likely to abhor. How might we collectively aspire to
pushback? What might be alternative ‘next steps’ to those proposed by
Maylea? In what follows, I suggest that Leftists and progressives should
strengthen their commitment to preserve the social work ‘field’ and that
we might use his article as an urgent prompt to collectively galvanise
and reenergise efforts to transform it. In making this argument, I will
briefly sketch out what I term DSW (see also Garrett, 2021). This can
be perceived as a neo-social work aiming to oppose any further moves
to limit the field of possibilities within the profession. At its core, DSW
contests the idea that practitioners and educators ought to serve as mere
handmaidens or functional auxiliaries of capitalism and the institutional
orders that it requires.
The DSW project is rooted in the understanding that progressive so-
cial work practice and education can only be safeguarded if we set aboutA World to Win 1143
creating new structures within the structures: new ideological and organi-
sational formations that are wholly committed to waging a ‘war of posi-
tion’ and creating new forms of radical ‘common sense’ (Forgacs, 1988).
This is, of course, a much more onerous and challenging task than sim-
ply genuflecting to the call for abolition. I am not so naı̈ve as to believe
that DSW is likely to become a majority preoccupation, but adherence
to its main tenets could begin to detach sizeable and influential fractions
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which, in coalition with other movements in civil society, might have a
significant and beneficial impact.
Next steps: NO to ‘ending’ social work, YES to
‘dissenting’ social work
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), one definition of
dissent refers to a disagreement with a ‘proposal or resolution; the oppo-
site of consent’. The word and the actions or attitudes it hints at also sig-
nal a constellation of other words, such as resistance, subversive,
dissidence and disruption (Yu and Mandell, 2015; Kamali and Jönsson,
2019). Dissent, maintains the OED, is likely to imply an alternative ‘pro-
posal’ or ‘resolution’ that is at odds with the dominant or hegemonic
way of responding to an ‘issue’, ‘social problem’ or set of circumstances.
Perhaps, reference to dissent also connotes an affective disposition, a
mood or a vibe that is suggestive of an individual or a group seeking to
‘rock-the-boat’. Maybe dissent, as a number of Black feminist writers ar-
gue, can also find expression in anger intent on ‘setting things right’ and
ensuring that there is social justice (Lorde, 1984; Lugones, 2003). Such
anger was to the fore in the summer of 2020 in the countless demonstra-
tions opposing white supremacy. In such contexts, the collective and po-
litical challenge becomes one of trying to figure out how ‘to transcend
from personal outrage to social influence and the rejection of the unac-
ceptable through moral and ethical actions’ (Fronek and Chester, 2016,
p. 165). The aim is to champion forms of dissent adhering to the values
featured in the IFSW definition; important here is the reference to social
work being a part of the struggles aspiring to bring about the ‘liberation
of people’, whilst adhering to the principles of social justice and human
rights. Historically, such struggles have often been housed within more
encompassing communist or socialist projects. The COVID-19 global
pandemic makes clear, such projects are more important than at any
time in the past hundred years.
Around the time that neoliberal capitalism was beginning to gain a
foothold in the USA, Shirley Cooper (1977) maintained that social work
is a ‘dissenting profession’. Writing in Australasia, almost half-a-century
later, Fronek and Chester (2016, p. 165) contend that social work is a
‘dissenting profession because in order to uphold its mission, social1144 Paul Michael Garrett
workers are agents of change obligated to address social injustice and
breaches of human rights where they occur’. Relatedly, DSW interrog-
ates dominant ways of understanding the social world within the disci-
pline. DSW, cannot be articulated along the lines of ‘blueprints’ or
‘action plans’, but it might be provisionally perceived as operating within
a space patterned by, at least, a dozen themes, even commitments: DSW
is attuned to and seeks to eradicate the harms caused to humans,
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other species and the planet by capitalism;
is enriched by feminist perspectives and the theorisation of
heteropatriarchy;
combats white supremacy and racism and is alert to the dangers
of fascism;
tries to decolonise social work knowledge and to learn from per-
spectives derived from Africa, Asia and Latin America;
recognises that social work has frequently been complicit in op-
pressive processes and nurtures a willingness to evolve forms of
social work education and practice which challenge them;
encourages analyses vibrating with an historical pulse and is keen
to examine the evolution of economic, state and cultural processes
marginalising, stigmatising or exploiting different groups;
is future-orientated and dismissive of ideas implying there was a
‘golden age’ of benign social work existing before the arrival of
neoliberal capitalism;
appreciates the tremendous gains which technology brings, but is
alert to the threats posed by techno-authoritarianism;
is rooted in critical social theory, committed to reading beyond
the ‘set list’ and keen to emphasise the need for open debate on
the future(s) of social work education and practice;
is intent on critically interrogating ‘false trails’ and voguish theo-
rists and theories often failing to adequately address core concerns
impacting on social work;
is convinced that dissent has to be a collective endeavour as op-
posed to an individual activity; and
is aligned with, energised, replenished and sustained by the oppo-
sitional activity generated ‘on the ground’ within trade unions, ac-
tivist social movements, community organisations, progressive
coalitions, ‘user’ networks, marches and campaigns
Clearly, these themes are far from exhaustive and the foregoing might
be viewed as a foundation for discussion: it furnishes a ‘thinking space’
rather than a ‘manifesto’. This ‘agenda’ can be developed, debated, re-
fined, supplemented and even supplanted. The key point is that DSW
aims to counter the passivity and, ultimately, defeatism that Maylea may
unintentionally be endorsing.A World to Win 1145
These coordinates might be caricatured as yet another call to action,
yet another counter-narrative, which pushes ‘against the dominant hege-
mony’ (p. 3). However, we do desperately need our ‘counter-narratives’,
imbued with a sense of hope, during these globally difficult circumstan-
ces. The key questions become: what are the opportunities for dissent in
a specific domain (nationally, regionally, locally and in terms of practice
specialism) at a particular conjuncture? What are the obstacles? How
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can these obstacles be challenged by the creation of oppositional, dis-
senting alliances? Workers need to collectivise their discontent and aspi-
rations by, to use Marx’s (1990 [1867], p. 416) phrase, putting their
‘heads together’. The ‘collective labourer’ or ‘combined working person-
nel’ is a force, which has the potential to challenge and eradicate ex-
ploitative practices (Marx, 1990 [1867], p. 590).
With DSW, the aspiration is to tilt social work in a more socially pro-
gressive direction and to think about how it might be radically re-
imagined. If there are no sustained attempts to generate more expansive
and dissenting forms of thinking, then social work risks being ‘hollowed’
or completely ‘emptied out’ (Marx, 1981 [1857–58], p. 488). In such a
dystopian scenario, practitioners are increasing likely, as Maylea’s cri-
tique implies, to evolve into docile functionaries wholly steered by algo-
rithms and machine learning. And how deeply paradoxical that would
be, given how the global pandemic has foregrounded the importance of
the ‘social’ in social work. More than this, our conjuncture illuminates
afresh that we live in an interconnected world that can only be economi-
cally and relationally sustained if we are collectively committed to so-
cialist ethics and values rooted in interdependency, mutual caring and
solidarity.
Conclusion
Maylea suggests that the abolition of social work would help clear the
battlefield so that ‘other, stronger forces’ can ‘progress the struggle
against inequality’ (p. 3). However, the struggle to safeguard the integ-
rity of the ‘field’ against the encroachment of the neoliberal ‘apparatus’
is integral to this endeavour. Indeed, the lines of battle may be far less
clear than he implies: in neoliberal societies, ‘everywhere’ is subsumed
and transformed into spaces for a series of seemingly discrete and
unconnected skirmishes. Given this development, social work becomes—
in Gramsci’s formulation—part of the ‘earthworks’ and one of the
trenches of civil society where battle must be engaged (Forgacs, 1988, p.
52). In contrast, all Maylea appears to offer is defeatism and the aban-
donment of struggle inside of social work. However, perhaps he might
reconsider handing his notice and cease packing his office belongings
into cardboard boxes? At the end of a pitifully anxious and frightening1146 Paul Michael Garrett
year, we must believe that if we stand together and unite, we still have a
world to win, both within and beyond social work.
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