Social work research and human rights: where do we go from here?

Setting the scene

The most recent global definition of social work identifies human rights as one of the guiding values for social work, next to social justice, respect for diversities and collective responsibilities (IFSW, 2014; Ornellas et al., 2018). Since the emergence of the first public declaration of the International Federation of Social Work in 1988, human rights were recognised as an important value framework for social work. The framework stressed that social work was - and always will be - a human rights profession. In the meanwhile, this declaration led to a renewed and vital body of scholarship on the role of human rights for social work (see for example Ife, 2001; Reischert, 2007; Wronka, 2008). McPherson et al. (2017), for example, made a plea for a human rights perspective in social work that helps shape understandings of who is disadvantaged and who is not, but also enables the social work community to identify macro-forces at work as well as the need for intervention on the macro-level. In that vein, Ife (2001) distinguishes between a top-down and a bottom-up approach to human rights in social work, referring to the discursive nature of human rights. This means that human rights are not fixed or static, and therefore they cannot only be fully defined but should also be seen as levers for marginalised groups to struggle for social justice (Lister, 2007). Human rights might thus have two interpretations in social work (Dean, 2015; Vandekinderen et al., 2019). In that sense, Ife (2001, p. 152) argues that social workers can position themselves as active participants in this discursive process in two specific ways, and distinguishes between a deductive and inductive approach to human rights which both require a democratic, participative process in which all stakeholders can have a role. On the one hand, the deductive approach starts from the formal rights of citizens who have a formal status as citizens in the nation state (see Lister, 2007) and then asks: ‘what does this mean for practice?’ Also other authors address this function of formal rights, with reference to how equality of access to formal rights can guarantee that vulnerable groups are eligible for claiming and using their rights, case by case (see Weiss-Gal & Gal, 2009). As such, many social workers are engaged in ensuring these rights on a daily basis. In that vein, Dean (2015) refers to the articulation of ‘thin needs’ through rights, related to what is required for human beings’ bare survival, which ‘may in part be met through the protections offered by formal or procedural rights, which guarantee equality of access and opportunity’ (Dean, 2015, p. 21). A sole focus on this legally guaranteed function of rights is nonetheless not enough, as it entails the risk that rights are seen as a purely individual matter. As McPherson et al. (2017) argue, a human rights lens however goes beyond a legalistic understanding of human rights and engages with a socio-political interpretation of human rights, addressing the question: how can social work shape society in such a way that human rights and social justice are substantively realised? The inductive approach, on the other hand, thus starts from the realities and complexities emerging in everyday social work practice situations of citizens who experience a kind of second-class citizenship and then asks: what are the human rights issues at stake and how can they be realised? (see Warming & Fahnøe, 2017). In this vein, Dean (2015, p. 21) argues that we should make sure that ‘thick needs’ are met through substantive rights, which ensures universal protection related to ‘what is required for true fulfilment’ of the right to human flourishing. A thicker understanding of human needs and rights embraces the social, political, historical and cultural context that sustains our human dignity and flourishing and is embedded in a citizenship discourse in which the aim of social policy and the welfare state is to promote and guarantee social justice and social equality (Dean, 2015). The socio-political function of human rights implies that social work reaches beyond the (re)mediating strategies in individual situations, but takes up a public mandate to reformulate personal troubles into public issues (Lorenz, 2008, 2016). For social workers, this encompasses attempts to intervene in the structural aspects of the living conditions of citizens and to provide and mobilise the available social resources in order to enable everyone to realise the right to human flourishing (Dean, 2015; Lorenz, 2016). This public role and mandate of social work can be filled in differently, such as advocating for policy change but also developing innovative social work practices that raise the voice of excluded groups or that disturb the current social order. In other words, this political role of social work can’t be limited to various types of policy practice and advocacy strategies at the macro level, but is also shaped in social work practice that investigates the vital significance of social work practice development in the realm of the ‘lived citizenship’ of people who are living on the edge of society (Warming & Fahnøe, 2017).

Human rights and the changing nature of the welfare state

The development of the welfare state was one of the vehicles to realise human rights. However, Moyn (2018) links the human rights era with the breakthrough of neoliberalism and welfare state retrenchment. In other words, although the human rights discourse increasingly spread and institutionalised throughout the world, social policies seem to move into another direction during the last decades (Garrett, 2019) and it can be argued that European welfare states experience pressure in social and economic terms (Lorenz, 2016). Whereas the political values of equality and solidarity were originally embraced in Western democracies and resulted in welfare state arrangements that materialised redistribution and social protection rationales, European welfare states gradually shifted their focus in practice (Cantillon, 2017). The premise that the welfare state is responsible for social protection and the redistribution of resources to enable the well-being and realise the rights of citizens has subtly shifted into a focus on individual responsibility, self-governance and self-protection (Clarke, 2005; Dwyer, 2019; Villadsen, 2007). It has therefore been argued that recent social policy reforms and developments show that the rhetoric of securing human rights and social justice in welfare states still exists, yet is changing and under pressure in practice (Kessl, 2009), which reflects the emblematic ‘triumph of a more individualist understanding of social relations’ (Marston & McDonald, 2014, p. 1023). It is argued that contemporary societies are currently sliding into a cult of individualism, reducing the question of how to achieve social solidarity to a matter of individual effort (Lorenz, 2005, 2016). A recent body of research suggests, for example, that this growing pressure on the welfare state results in the idea that public responsibility for the welfare of citizens should be directed towards the private responsibility of the individual, his/her natural social networks (such as the family) and the community/civil society (Dean, 2015). The underlying rationale entails that public responsibility should be at least rebalanced with, and even transferred to, individual service users, their families and communities (Dermaut et al., 2019).

This recalibration between individual and public responsibility is also associated with the use of conditionality as a policy instrument (Marston & McDonald, 2014; Dwyer, 2019). The conditionality of rights implies that citizens have no rights without responsibilities, and that rights rather subtly shift into social obligations in practice (Garrett, 2019). Clasen and Clegg (2007), for example, differentiate between possible ‘levels’ and ‘levers’ of conditionality in social policy: conditions of category, conditions of circumstance and conditions of conduct. Conditions of category are conditions of ‘circumstance’ or, in more common social security parlance, eligibility and entitlement criteria, while conditions of ‘conduct’ refer to the tightening of behavioural requirements and constraints imposed upon different kinds of benefit recipients through legislation or administrative guidance. In this era, policy debates have become preoccupied with this intensified conditionality with a desire of ‘punishing the ‘irresponsible’ behaviour of those reliant upon social welfare to meet their basic needs’ (Fletcher & Flint, 2018). Moyn (2018) explicitly links human rights with social justice, as is the case in the global definition of social work. This link is crucial, because it makes explicit that a human rights approach in social work cannot be disconnected from broader societal challenges to social justice, which brings us to the relationship or discrepancy between human rights and social rights.

The welfare state, human rights and social rights

Social rights, as one of the three generations of human rights, have been linked to the national state. Social rights and social citizenship came to be associated with three key values: belonging, rights and participation (Bellamy, 2008; Dean, 2015). First, citizenship involved belonging to the national community. Second, citizenship was linked to specific rights, such as being treated as equals possessing certain rights by virtue of their humanity. Finally, citizenship involved the capacity, entitlement and obligation to participate as a full and equal member within the economy and the political system. These three values reinforced each other and resulted in a strong connection between belonging and (access to) rights. In other words, social rights were accessible for only those citizens (the so-called birth-right citizenship (Isin, 2012; Isin & Turner, 2007). As stated by Turner (2016, p. 681), citizenship is an exclusive right that draws clear boundaries between insiders and outsiders in terms of access to rights. The basic tension in the modern history of citizenship is that it works according to a territorial logic, being normatively justified in seeking to close its borders against strangers in the interests of the security of the members of a citizenship community. Although many have questioned the relationship between territory and democracy, rights of access and residence remain fundamentally linked in an era of globalisation. As such, Turner (2016) refers to ‘type 1 denizens’, namely a group of people permanently resident in a foreign country, but only enjoying limited, partial or even no social rights. Turner (2016, p. 6) asserts that ‘citizenship in a market-driven society begins to approximate denizenship’, which is described as the status of being a resident non-citizen who has duties to the state, but diminished entitlements. Moreover, he emphasises that ‘a denizen’ initially referred to a person from a foreign country with a legal right of residence (by virtue of a visa or work permit) but limited rights to welfare and political participation. As such, Turner (2016) argues that universal social protection of citizens declines, since a wide diversity of citizens increasingly risk to end up at the bottom-rung of the ladder of citizenship, merely resembling denizens, ‘with thin, fragmented and fragile social bonds to the public world’ (Turner, 2016, p. 1).

Human rights and social work research

The above-mentioned historical, societal and policy developments have major implications for contemporary social work, including social work research (D’Cruz & Jones, 2004; Roose et al., 2016). The crisis of the welfare state and the current historical and social context in which social work is active raises questions about the stance of social work research towards the core values of human rights and social justice (Mullaly, 2007). As reflected in the global definition of social work, rather than being neutral, technical and value-free, social work research intrinsically has a normative value orientation, being in search of human rights and social justice (Shaw, Gredig & Sommerfeld 2012; Roose et al., 2016). However, to this day social work has always had an ‘uneasy relationship’ with research (Lorenz, 2008) and different understandings of the nature and purpose of social work research have evolved, reflecting diverse conceptions of the nature and purposes of social work itself (Shaw, Gredig & Sommerfeld, 2012; Parton & Kirk, 2010; Powell & Ramos, 2010). As we are crucially interested in how the European social work research community deals with this search for a disciplinary identity, we will mainly focus on the question whether – and how - social work researchers take a stance and have a constitutive commitment to pursue human rights and social justice.

In international circles, the recognition of the status of social work as an academic discipline has indeed been a vital dilemma and subject for debate (see Hare, 2004). In comparison to other established disciplines such as psychology, sociology or pedagogy, the academisation of social work in Europe is however a rather recent phenomenon. While in the United States, social work already established a university degree in the 1930s, in Europe the picture is much more complicated. In some countries social work is only taught in university colleges or universities of applied science (for instance the Netherlands and Switzerland) or only in universities (for instance Finland and the UK), while in other countries, a more professionally oriented bachelor degree at the university colleges is combined with an academic degree at university level (for example in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium), and Germany). Despite these institutional differences, there has been a drive to consolidate social work training courses and structures at the university level across Europe, with opportunities being created for postgraduate studies (Banks, 2004). In that sense, also doctoral research studies are now possible within the actual confines of the respective disciplines of the social professions themselves, and doctoral research candidates are under less pressure to obtain their doctorates in ‘bordering disciplines’ such as psychology or sociology (Lorenz, 2008, p. 626). As Frost (2018, p. 346) argues aptly, the existence, nature and specific elements of anything which can be identified as European social work ‘has generated an interesting and productive debate over the last two decades’.

In these discussions about the academic grounding of social work, particular attention is thus paid to an exploration of the disciplinary identity of social work research (Lorenz, 2008; Frost, 2018). Some authors have, for example, argued for the shaping of a science of social work (see Brekke, 2014; Anastas, 2014), that ‘intends to serve as a catalyst for shaping social work into a scientific discipline’ (Brekke, 2014, p. 455). Shaw et al. (2010) distinguish between five goals of social work research: (1) to generate or to enhance theory and knowledge about social work, (2) to provide impartial evidence about and for decision making, (3) to improve practice and organisational learning, (4) to highlight the quality of lived experience and practical wisdom, (5) to promote justice, social change and social inclusion. Shaw et al. (2010) explicitly links social work research with this broader value orientation: ‘social work research will be distinctive insofar as, inter alia, it achieves a thoroughgoing consistency with broader social work purposes’ (Shaw et al., 2010, p. 14). Also the reformulation of the global definition of social work (IFSW, 2014) places greater emphasis on the academic and scientific underpinning of the profession and offers, with reference to social work’s commitment to social justice, ‘a renewed transition towards a profession that seeks to re-engage the ‘social’ in social work’ (Ornellas et al., 2018, p. 223). D’Cruz and Jones (2004) make a distinction between a liberal and radical lens, when discussing different approaches to social work research. Viewing research through a liberal lens, the social work researcher considers him/herself as an independent investigator who follows codes of conducts and professionally endorsed techniques to produce new knowledge. A radical lens on social work research recognises the researcher as a social actor whose activities are part of the reproduction and/or transformation of existing social relationships of exclusion or inclusion, domination or oppression. The explicitly political nature of human rights and social justice encourages social work researchers to consider the necessity of a radical lens. As such, social work research should be considered as an act of reflexivity which refers to the scientist ‘turning the instruments of social science’ back upon himself (sic) in order to reduce distortions in his discretion of reality’ (Wacquant & Bourdieu, 1992). Social work’s scientific practice should be reflexive, which implies that researchers fully engage with values as objects of inquiry in their own right and that methodological choices are made by those value commitments and recursively explored in the research process (Longhofer & Floersch, 2014, p. 529). As such, a social work research agenda guided by human rights and social justice not only focuses on the what-question (‘what do we study’) but also on the how question: to what extent contributes social work research to the realisation of human rights and social justice. If human rights and social justice are the guiding values for social work research, then the question arises to what extent social work research contributes to their realisation? And this special issue focuses exactly on this vital question, to push and foster this debate for and with the European social work research community in democratic ways: where do we go from here?

Content of this special issue

This special issue was launched as part of the European Conference on Social Work Research that took place in Leuven (Belgium) in April 2019. The conference focused on the ways social work research and practice can operate in a context of changing welfare state paradigms, and in particular how core values of human rights and social justice can be embodied and realised in social work research. What are the implications of this strong value orientation for social work research and practice development given these societal changes? How can these values be integrated in the daily practice of social work and social work research? What are the implications for the position of the social worker, the social work researcher and the social work participants? In this special issue, we present fourteen papers that were presented during the conference and that focus on different aspects of these issues.

First, three papers enrich the theoretical and empirical debate of human rights in social work by making use of the work of Dean (2015). In a conceptual paper, Alseth considers human rights as an opportunity and challenge for social work in a changing Norwegian welfare state. Based on the continuum between sufficiency and equality, she shows how human rights politicise social work, but also points on the tensions between a human rights framework for social work and the current neoliberal trends in the Norwegian welfare state. Naessens also uses the work of Dean to analyse how social workers in Belgium address the needs of people in prisons. She argues for a social work that starts from a thicker, more interpretative understanding of human needs. Since human dignity forms the basis of the UDHR, Schmidt et al. describe the development of the dignity circle to promote dignity in social work practice.

Second, six papers analyse how social workers are dealing in practice with the broader social policy changes that enlarge the gap between a social work guided by human rights and the current socio-political context. McGregor et al. show how youth civic and political engagement practice as an orienting framework can help to resists attacks on rights and obligations and to promote those activities and services that engender the full embodiment of citizenship. Hill and Laredo focus on the small acts of resistance and kindness and show how direct advocacy is an essential ingredient of social justice orientation. Cabiata et al. stress the importance of practice shocks in social work education that confront social work students with the contradictory aspects of their future role and made them reflect about the value base of social work. Fagerberg et al. make use of the concept of functional stupidity to show how reflexivity of social workers can lead to unreflective moment of organisational compliance as a coping strategy to help them to get through the day. Teloni et al. analyse the working conditions of Greek social workers dealing who are trapped with limited services and hostile policies against their users. Berger et al show how social workers become highly emotionally involved, given the exclusionary policies towards refugees.

Third, three papers focus on different aspects of policy practice and self-advocacy and ask implicitly the essential question ‘which side we’re on’. Aaslund and Chear develop a theoretical base for social workers responses to collective action by marginalised groups and point to the dilemmas for social workers, if marginalised groups resist or protest against the system in which social workers are employed. Guidi compares the policy action of South European professional organisations and shows that policy practice can be ‘social justice, first’ or ‘profession, first’.

Fourth, the last three papers focus on social work research and its contribution to the realisation of human rights and social justice. Williams’ arguments that building the evidence base for addressing needs of minority race/ethnic populations is not a specialist pursuit, but should be a consideration of all social work research. Hauss makes a plea for historical research that enlightens how social work contributed to social injustice. Tham and colleagues shows empirically that the engagement of Swedish social work faculty members in social policy processes is rather low and opens up the debate about the role of social work researchers in policy-related activities to enhance social justice.