ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how genealogy can be a useful method for analyzing key moments of transformation in child welfare. The main commonality is a combined interest in using genealogy as an effective method to raise questions especially at times of change and transformation. Genealogy considers a range of social relations taking into account relations of power help to distinguish those discourses which are dominant and most to the fore. Genealogy helps to locate discontinuities, for example, in forms of reasoning and to open up the taken-for-granted understandings, explanations and practices. Skehill used the genealogical method to usurp traditional assumptions about development of child welfare and protection social work as a mere protracted, linear and non-problematized process. In Finland, the child welfare as a social practice and discursive formation has been challenged during the past years. The chapter concludes with a restated commitment to continue to interrogate specifically methodology for understanding child welfare and protection transformations over time, place and space.
