ABSTRACT
Whether at the micro level of interpersonal interaction, the broader levels of multi-agency working and linking available resources to client need, or at the macro level of socio-political critique, social work is embedded within multiple sites of continuous and active interpretation. Initially, hermeneutics concerned itself with the interpretation of texts; specifically in terms of religious texts, and later the relationship between language and cultural context. From the eighteenth century onwards, an interest in the relationship between signs, symbols and context emerged in the philosophy of both linguistics and history. Nevertheless, the critique of interpretation as a reflection of ideology that Habermas puts forward does bring attention to the notion of production. For both Gadamer and Habermas, interpretation takes place within a field of production: for Habermas, this is a field dominated by ideological apparatus that must be resisted and rethought, whereas for Gadamer there is a constantly re-emerging and re- producing ground, which each interpretation challenges to widen and retract.
