ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the political construction and historical development of social work focusing on the profession’s inherent tension between social care and social control. It describes developments that have strengthened the peace process and discusses a more engaged role for social work. A role that goes beyond ethnic divides and re-claims the ‘social’ rather than the ‘national question’. The history of social work in Cyprus provides with a unique representation of the country’s multiple political transitions. Mapping out the complex historical, structural, politico-legal and cultural setting which has produced the particular frame of social work in Cyprus requires a historical perspective. The first grassroots meetings and conferences between social workers, peace and reconciliation activists occurred for the first time in 2012. Like in many other countries facing a similar predicament and historical context, Cyprus is facing one of the longest modern ongoing conflicts, manifested essentially as a de facto partition.
