ABSTRACT

This handbook highlights innovative and affect-driven feminist dialogues that inspire social work practice, education, and research across the globe. The editors have gathered the many (at times silenced) feminist voices and their allies together in this book which reflects current and contested feminist landscapes through 52 chapters from leading feminist social work scholars from the many branches and movements of feminist thought and practice. The breadth and width of this collection encompasses work from diverse socio-political contexts across the globe including Central and South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North America, Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. 

The book is divided into six parts as follows:

• Decoloniality, Indigeneity and Radical Theorising

• Feminist Social Work in Fields of Practice

• Academy and Feminist Research

• The Politics of Care

• Allyship, Profeminisms and Queer Perspectives

• Social Movements, Engaging with the Environment and the More-than-Human

The above sections present the diverse feminisms that have influenced social work which provides a range of engaging, informative and thought-provoking chapters. These chapters highlight that feminists still face the battle of working towards ending gender-based violence, discrimination, exploitation and oppression, and therefore it is urgent that we feature the many contemporary examples of activism, resistance, best practice and opportunities to emphasise the different ways feminisms remain central to social work knowledge and practice.

It will be of interest to all scholars and students of social work and related disciplinary areas including the social and human sciences, global and social politics and policy, human rights, environmental and sustainability programmes, citizenship and women’s studies.

part Section 1|116 pages

Decoloniality, indigeneity and radical theorising

chapter 1|12 pages

Feminisms in social work practice

chapter 3|12 pages

Colored demarcations in postcolonial feminism

Can the subalterned social worker now speak?

chapter 4|10 pages

Reversing a one-track history

Listening to minority voices at the intersections of gender, race and intellectual disability

chapter 7|12 pages

Social Work and Marxism

Unitary perspective in the anti-racist, feminist, and anti-imperialist struggle

chapter 10|12 pages

Feminism, politics, and social work

part Section 2|122 pages

Feminist social work in fields of practice

chapter 11|13 pages

Gender empowerment in youth work in Palestine

A missing link

chapter 13|13 pages

#Reporting worries

Narratives of sexual harassment and intersecting inequalities in Swedish social work

chapter 20|12 pages

Feminisms and social work

The development of an emancipatory practice

part Section 3|94 pages

Academy and feminist research

chapter 23|9 pages

Feminist research in Social Work

Epistemological-methodological keys from the South

chapter 24|11 pages

Feminist queries

Exploring feminist social work research questions

chapter 25|13 pages

Academia and gender disparities

A critical historical analysis of academic careers of Chilean social workers from a feminist-intersectional approach

chapter 27|11 pages

Feminist leadership and social work

The experience of women leaders in Palestinian universities

part Section 4|66 pages

The politics of care

chapter 29|9 pages

Life-sustaining communitarian weavings

Feminist interpellations of the approach of community social work 1

chapter 30|10 pages

Incubators of the future

Motherhood, biology and pre-birth social work in feminist practice

chapter 31|13 pages

Parenting through mental health challenges

Intersections of gender, race, class and power

chapter 32|11 pages

Social work and two types of maternalism

Supporting single mothers through strategic maternalism

chapter 33|10 pages

Matricentric feminist social work

Towards an organising conceptual framework and practice approach to support empowered mothering

part Section 5|106 pages

Allyship, profeminisms and queer perspectives

chapter 37|14 pages

Generation old and proud

No going back in the closet

chapter 38|11 pages

Heteropatriarchy and child sexual abuse

Contemplating profeminist practice with men victim-survivors

chapter 41|12 pages

‘Men’ as social workers

Professional identities, practices and education

chapter 42|13 pages

Ally work at the intersections

Theorising for practice and practicing for theory

chapter 43|13 pages

Beyond alternative masculinities and men's allyship

Troubling men's engagement with feminisms in social work and human services practice

part Section 6|114 pages

Social movements, engaging with the environment, and the more-than-human

chapter 44|13 pages

Deliberate democracy and the MeToo movement

Examining the impact of social media feminist discourses in India

chapter 45|10 pages

“We can't just sit back and say it's too hard”

Older women, social justice, and activism

chapter 48|13 pages

Eco-femagogy

A red-green perspective for transforming social work education in the post-covid world

chapter 50|11 pages

Ecofeminism and the popular solidarity economy in Latin American Social Work

Resistance to the patriarchal and capitalist system