ABSTRACT
In reviewing the book as a whole, three issues emerge as central in the accounts of the contributors. The first may be described as the process of becoming a social worker; that is, the ways in which the authors explain their decision to enter a career in social work. The second focuses on what it is like to be a social worker: the paths people have taken in social work and their feelings about the job of social work, today and in the future. The third issue reflects the different contexts in which social work is located in different parts of the world. The accounts demonstrate that there is no single way of becoming a social worker and no unitary social work task. In spite of the multiplicity of social work settings, however, shared ideas and practices shine through the contributors’ stories of their lives and work. The narratives also afford insight into the ambivalences and complexities that surround becoming and being a social worker in a global (or perhaps more accurately, ‘glocal’) world (see Robertson 1992). From this, it is evident that becoming and being a social worker is accompanied by ongoing tension between the self and others, the individual and society, the local and the global, as social workers negotiate and renegotiate their lives and work on a daily basis.
