Community work in Nordic welfare states in transformation: directions, conditions and dilemmas

Community work is a concept that includes a diversity of directions and working methods that are conducted at group and community level worldwide. It is conducted in slums, segregated suburbs, disadvantaged inner-city areas and vulnerable rural areas – areas where social mobilization of people and resources is needed to initiate social development, change and sustainability (International Association of Community Development (IACD) 2021; Popple 2015; Rubin and Rubin 2008). Community work addresses social needs and problems that cannot be remedied by individual-focused methods. The overall aim of the community work approach is to meet people and their needs where they live and to prevent and counteract societal problems such as poverty, powerlessness, social exclusion, segregation, marginalization and inequality, especially for excluded groups in marginalized communities (Hutchinson 2009; Popple 2015; Sjöberg and Turunen 2018; Turunen 2004). Community work can also be conducted in the context of community planning, helping to prevent problems through social planning and creating space for social services as well as facilitating opportunities for participation and influence (Denvall 1994; Sundh 1999; Turunen 2017).

In the international community work discourse, there is now a heterogeneous flora of divisions in different directions and methods, depending on theoretical and ideological perspectives. Popple (2015), for example, has identified nine different forms of community work. As a reference point to this editorial, we take as our starting point Jack Rothman’s classical categorization of community work (Rothman 1995). Rothman identified three main directions: locality development, social planning and social action which in a Swedish context has been called local development, social planning and social mobilization (Sjöberg and Turunen 2018). Local development is consensus oriented and aims to increase participation and influence the development of local communities through creating dialogue, organizing activities, gathering resources and creating networks and collaborations between different actors. Social planning concerns participation in community planning and development of services aiming to incorporate social aspects into community planning (Sundh 1999; Turunen 2009). Social planning is developed within the welfare state frame and is expert-initiated although it can include the involvement of the local community in planning processes. Social mobilization in our understanding has a focus on collective empowerment and includes aspects of local development as well as critical and radical social work and social action (Lindén 2009; Sjöberg et al. 2018; Turunen 2004). Social mobilization is based on the mobilization of local people, excluded groups and social movements for influence, social change and social justice. One starting point is that there are unequal power relations in society demanding that influence, power and resources need to be redistributed (Popple 2015). There are no watertight bulkheads between the main directions which often overlap in practice. Many of the special issue’s examples are mixed forms with varying elements of these three categories. However, in community work practice, there are different emphases in terms of purpose, perspective and methods as well as phases of the work. It is in this Weberian ideal-typical sense that the division of the main directions is to be understood.

Community work in a Nordic context

In the contemporary Nordic context, the context of community work constitutes a broad spectrum of stakeholders and actors that covers public administration, voluntary association, NGOs, social movement, cooperatives, religious congregations and social and private companies (Sjöberg and Turunen 2018; Turunen 2020). The arenas can vary from small networks to neighbourhoods, suburbs, local communities and organizations (within and outside municipalities, county councils and state). Perspectives vary and can include both top-down and bottom-up. Cooperation is often needed between public, civic and lately also private stakeholders and has been a characteristic of Nordic community work. This diversity of directions, actors, arenas and perspectives also appears in the various articles in this issue of Nordic Social Work Research.

In the Nordic context, the concept of community work was originally taken from the Anglo-American discourse and translated to samhällsarbete in Swedish, which became an established Nordic concept in the 1970s after the publication of Nordic reading in community work (Nordisk läsning i samhällsarbete) by Kerstin Lindholm (1971). Community is an ambiguous concept often difficult to translate across culture and languages. The term community refers to a geographical location such as a local community, a residential area or neighbourhood, as well as a social experience involving networks, societies or shared relationships and interactions between people, such as feeling of togetherness. In the Nordic countries, the ambiguity of the term and the translation of the notion of community have presented specific challenges defining the meaning of community and community work. In the Scandinavian languages, the distinction between society and community is not always clear. In the Finnish language however, clear distinctions are articulated (Turunen 2004). Additionally, a difference between working in a local community and community work from a specific perspective and methodology has neither been clearly expressed, creating confusion around diverse community-oriented approaches. Regardless of country, the concepts of community and community work have both spatial and social attributes, i.e. there are both place-based and interest-based communities and community work. In the Nordic context, pronounced anti-racist, feminist or green community work has been comparatively rare. Most articles in this issue also have a more place-based than interest-based focus. Specific to the Nordic community work is also a history of experimental forms found in temporary projects rather than permanent long-term activities, which is problematized in some of the articles.

A common question is how does community work relate to social work? In an international context, individual case work, group work and community work are considered the main methods in professional social work practice (Gray, Midgley, and Webb 2012; Healy 2005; Stepney and Popple 2008). The importance of community work to the profession in an international context is reflected in the current global definition of social work (IFSW 2014). Yet in Nordic countries, individual case work is the dominant model of social work (cf. Meeuwisse et al. 2016; Sjöberg and Turunen 2018; Turunen 2004) even though Nordic public sector social services legislation legitimizes methods and interventions related to community work approaches (Hucthinson 2009; SOU 2020:47). In general, mainstream social work in Nordic countries combines macro-level social policy and micro-level social work with individuals and families, while community work at the mezzo-level, e.g. in local communities, where individuals and structures interact, has been neglected (Turunen 2009). In addition, the Nordic welfare states, including municipal social services, have been characterized by top-down rather than bottom-up approaches to practice.

Community work has had a weak position for decades in the Nordic countries, due to the reliance on the universal welfare state to meet needs and solve social issues. Nevertheless, Nordic community work has a long history in social work. There are historical examples such as the settlement movement and early associations and unions for social work (Turunen 2004), e.g. the National Association of Social Work (CSA), established in 1903 (Lindholm 1993; Sundh and Turunen 1992; Swärd and Edebalk 2017). In professional social work in the Nordic countries, the popularity of community work increased during the 1970s, a consequence of the expansion of the welfare state and the radicalization of the profession. Meanwhile, a decline in Nordic community work coincided with the rise of neoliberalism and emphasis on privatization, market liberalization and individualization of welfare services (Hucthinson 2009; Sjöberg and Turunen 2018; Turunen 2004, 2020).

Regardless of community work’s comparatively weak position in the Nordic welfare states, the production of new knowledge has occurred through research and teaching activities in social work. This development has been somewhat polarized, by the increasing professionalization in academic communities and the trend towards de-professionalization in practice (Turunen 2004, 2009, 2020). To reverse this trend, new initiatives have been taken the last decade to include both theory and empirical examples in scientific publications on community work. The transformation of the welfare state policies and the impoverished living conditions related to the decline of the welfare state, especially in marginalized housing areas, have resulted in a growing interest in preventive social work in local communities as well as publications on community work. New joint books, thematic journal issues, reports and scientific articles focusing on community work in Nordic countries have been published such as Hucthinson (2009), Breivik and Sudmann (2015) and Sudmann and Breivik (2018) in Norway; Sjöberg, Rambaree, and Jojo (2015), Sjöberg et al. (2018), Sjöberg and Turunen (2018) and Rambaree, Sjöberg, and Turunen (2019) in Sweden; Matthies and Närhi (2016), Roivainen and Ranta-Tyrkkö (2016) and Kostiainen et al. (2019) in Finland; and Arp Fallov and Jørgensen (2018) in Denmark. The situation in Iceland is not documented after Hucthinson (2009), and no articles focusing on community work in Iceland were sent to this present special issue of Nordic Social Work Research.

Community work in changing Nordic welfare states: a challenge for social work

Inspired by Foucault’s concept of discourse (1997), we consider that the position and distinctiveness of Nordic community work needs to be related to the overarching discourses of the Nordic welfare states. Our view is that the changing nature of community work discourse, as outlined, can only be understood in relation to more general societal changes relating to social structures, policies and welfare state transformations. Community work is a situation- and context-dependent activity that is influenced by and reflects major societal changes, where new discourses and practices are created socially, spatially and virtually. Community work reflects global socio-economic and other changes ranging from neoliberalism to pandemics. As a concept, it has become elastic-reflexive to fit the constantly changing nature of Nordic societies and local communities. The articles included in this special issue show this and challenge all actors (politicians, practitioners and researchers) in social work to broaden their perspectives on the relationship between individual and society in both theory and practice.

In the Nordic countries, community work has historically mainly been conducted within the framework of the welfare state, especially in the municipal social sector. The conditions have thus been different than in many non-Nordic countries where publicly organized welfare systems have not existed to the same extent as in the Nordic countries. There has been a strong belief that the welfare state should be able to solve all kinds of social problems. In the Nordic countries since the 1980s, community work has generally also been more consensus-oriented than conflict-oriented (Lindén 2009; Sjöberg and Turunen 2018; Turunen 2004, 2020). However, since the 1980s, the policies of Nordic welfare states have, to varying degrees, become reduced, deregulated, marketized, individualized and gradually less universal, equal or generous (e.g. Allelin et al. 2021; Szebehely and Meagher 2018). Welfare and service gaps have increased between rural and urban regions (Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) 2020). Many suburbs have become marginalized neighbourhoods, where socio-economic segregation coincides with ethnic segregation (Righard, Johansson, and Salonen 2015; Thunström and Wang 2019; Wacquant 2008). These areas have not only become poorer, but they are also to differing degrees socio-economically and socio-spatially excluded from mainstream society and often also divided within themselves (Lundgren Stenbom and Turunen 2018; Sjöberg et al. 2018).

Structural and sociopolitical changes and the welfare state becoming less universal and generous have resulted in that the Nordic countries today face similar problems as many other countries regarding, for example, polarization, segregation and environmental/climate crisis (Allelin et al. 2021; Righard, Johansson, and Salonen 2015; Szebehely and Meagher 2018; Nordic Welfare Center 2021). Inequality and polarization have increased in all Nordic countries and are most visible in Sweden (OECD 2019), which has also undergone a spiral of deadly gang crime violence that has attracted international attention. Regardless of country, welfare failure and societal changes in vulnerable local communities and areas show that there is a growing need for outreach and preventive social work and community work in various forms. Existing individual case work and family-oriented methods are important but insufficient to meet the challenges of contemporary society.

Nordic community work has changed in step with societal changes and the transformation of the welfare state, as previous Nordic research (Sjöberg and Turunen 2018; Sudmann and Breivik 2018; Turunen 2004, 2009, 2020) and the articles in this special issue show. Community work has multiplied and diversified through new arenas, actors, perspectives and knowledge. A weakened public sector and environmental threats call for community work within public services and increased cooperation with local people and civic society actors, including voluntary associations. The risk is that the public sector will continue to retreat from its social responsibilities, leaving civil society the sole burden of welfare provision and problem solving in marginalized local communities. Today's social challenges require urgent efforts from all progressive community actors, parallel to the long-term struggle for renewal of the public welfare systems and policies. The articles in this issue highlight the diversity of community work today, with themes ranging from area-based initiatives to suburban and green urban commons. Had the invitation to this special issue come after the covid pandemic, increasing climate-related disasters and the war in Ukraine, these themes would probably have been more prominent. In any case, the discussion about social sustainability has increased and demanded that, to a greater extent than before, consideration also should be given to the relationship to nature and a fair societal transformation to meet the climate crises and issues of injustice.

The many issues, challenges and dilemmas confronting community work both in Nordic countries and globally are highlighted in the seven articles of this special issue of Nordic Social Work Research.

In the first paper, ‘The “Ghetto” strikes back: resisting welfare sanctions and stigmatizing categorizations in marginalized residential areas in Denmark’, Mia Arp Fallov and Rasmus Hoffmann Birk address how the Danish social housing sector is being restructured by strategies that seek to combat so-called ‘parallel societies’. These strategies entail tearing down and/or privatizing social housing in marginalized and vulnerable neighbourhoods and repressive and restrictive governance focusing on ethnic minorities. The authors argue that the ‘ghetto’ continually ‘strikes back’ against these policies in a struggle where local housing organizations, community workers and residents are engaged. The actors in this mobilization rework understandings of the neighbourhood generate resilience and coping of marginalized groups, build resistance of residents and thereby attempt to change state space production from within.

Aila-Leena Matthies takes the starting point in the reformed Finnish Social Welfare Act that obligates public social work to enact structural social work and address the community-level social problems.

Her article ‘Next-generation modelling of community work and structural social work in Finland’ examines how community work and structural social work are conceived by early career social workers based on empirical data from 26 project plans by social work master’s students. The data is analysed by content analysis and related to the categorizations of community work by Rothman and Popple and structural social work by Pohjola. The results reflect challenges created by managerialist service systems and suggest that categorizations as theoretical-conceptual frames rather than clear-cut strategies might be useful for identifying rich diversities and combinations. A conclusion is that structural social work can become a powerful approach when taken as a legal mandate for social workers, enacting community perspectives in social work.

In the article ‘Area-based development initiatives: a means to an end or an end in itself?’, based on a literature overview, Martin Grander, Kim Roelofs and Tapio Salonen problematize the role of area-based initiatives (ABI) and community work (CW) in Sweden. The results show that Sweden has a long tradition of several area-based initiatives (programmes and projects) with diverse headings and discourses, taking place in segregated housing areas. The focus of the literature overview is put on scientifically identified studies from the 1990s. Concerning community work, the authors confirm a specific Nordic problem that the distinction between community and society is not made clearly in translations of community work. The conclusion made is that the ABIs have not succeeded in solving the structural problems of segregation, but individual residents find them meaningful, and it is rather from this perspective that the ABIs should be studied in the future.

Feminist community work has hardly been discussed or empirically investigated in the Nordic community work, but Anna Nikupeteri, Pia Skaffari and Merja Laitinen do this in the article ‘Feminist community work in preventing violence against women: a case study of addressing intimate partner violence in Finland’. The research method is a hermeneutic case study. The research material consists of multiple sources: the material produced in the activities by the community workers, written feedback thereon, reports from the project meetings, interviews with four community workers and the reflective diary of a community worker. The practical activities of community workers consisted of raising awareness, promoting dialogue, supporting inter-professional cooperation and empowerment. The findings show that awareness raising of violence through the feminist community may prevent intimate partner violence and bring results when guided by a perspective on gender as a social construct combined by an intersectional and holistic approach to violence.

A Norwegian article by Tobba T Sudmann, Gro Hege Saltnes Urdal and Jan-Kåre Breivik, ‘Community building in deprived communicative environments: supporting participation and belonging for children with special communicative needs’, sheds light on interest-based rather than place-based community work. This article discusses how children with intellectual disabilities and special communicative needs in Norway use Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) and sign-to-speech. The authors show how community participation, playing and learning depend on communication and that communicative environments in contemporary school settings can create barriers for participation and belonging for this community. Based on case studies of professionals and families with intellectually disabled children who use sign-to-speech, communication as key to community building and community participation is discussed. A conclusion is that increasing community participation can be facilitated through community work with a cross-professional approach.

In ‘Suburban commons: the rise of suburban social movements and new urban commons in marginalized neighborhoods in Stockholm’ by Stefan Sjöberg and Lisa Kings, the authors have a specific focus on the social mobilization and action form of community work. A starting point is that the long-term changes of the Swedish welfare state have resulted in increasing inequalities, segregation and polarization, which is manifested in marginalized suburbs in Stockholm facing increasing social exclusion and marginalization. This transformation calls for increasing community work initiatives. Based on semi-structured interviews with community workers and activists as well as media articles, reports and web-based materials, the authors examine the rise of urban social movements mobilizing for inclusion, influence and social justice. The results show how social mobilization in the suburbs of Järvafältet in Stockholm has contributed to the development of new social institutions and urban commons.

‘The turn toward co-creation within the Norwegian welfare state: community work in new clothing?’ is an article by Gudmund Ågotnes and Inger Helen Midgård. Co-creation is discussed and problematized in the context of the Norwegian welfare state, where co-creation has become a trend in the promotion of user involvement. The study is an explorative study, in chief based on governmental reports. Two forms of implementation of co-creation are discussed: a pragmatic one, based on instrumental rationality, and an empowering model, developed within the community work tradition. The authors find that the governmental presentation of co-creation is a pragmatic form, dealing with instruments of governance and expressing rebranding of approaches and concepts already embedded in community work. This pragmatic approach risks of counteracting its original intent and constitutes, as the authors express it, a turn away from the core values and practices of community work, where the empowering model of co-creation is practiced.

Stephan Barthel, Johan Colding, Anne-Sofie Hiswåls, Peder Thalén and Päivi Turunen from Sweden highlight an expanded perspective on social sustainability in their article, ‘Urban green commons for socially sustainable cities and communities’. This article deals with co-creating knowledge production, based on a cross-disciplinary bricolage approach, between five disciplinary fields: public health, spatial planning, resource management, social work and life philosophy. Beginning with the Anthropocene concept, which recognizes the human impact on the Earth’s natural systems, the authors discuss how the natural environment can be included as a determinant of good living conditions beyond traditional social policy and social work. The perspective of urban green commons puts emphasis on social sustainability issues in socio-spatial, socio-economic and socio-existential meanings for the common good, also suggested as an additional perspective for further development of community work and collective joint actions for social sustainability across sectors and disciplines.

Contemporary challenges for community work in the Nordic countries

In summary, the articles in this special issue on ‘Community work in Nordic welfare states in transformation – directions, conditions, and dilemmas’ reflect contemporary community work in relation to the existing societal challenges for a socially, ecologically and economically sustainable development. The articles confirm that neoliberalism has since the 1980s had impacts on the Nordic welfare states and policies as well as on conditions, dilemmas and directions of community work. The decline of the welfare state and the increasing inequalities and polarization call for a reclaim of community work. It is obvious today that community workers by themselves are not able to solve problems of increasing inequalities, polarization and social exclusion in marginalized housing areas where diverse forms of area-based initiatives and community work are occurring. However, community workers can act in preventive aims, meet needs and contribute to problem solving, i.e. promote social development and change in cooperating and social mobilizing manners. A certain challenge is then to reach the inhabitants in marginalized neighbourhoods and create dialogue, trust, awareness, commitment, active participation, influence and collective empowerment to mobilize for social change and against exclusion and the path offered by criminal networks in these areas today. These conditions cannot be solved solely by individual case work or increasing repressive measures.

The Nordic community work had a golden age during the 1970s. This period was short, and thereafter community work became a marginalized practice within public social services. Since the 1980s, community work has gone through an elastic-reflexive transformation, towards fragmentation and diversity. One dilemma is that the concepts community and community work are still contested or absent in the Nordic social work discourse, while the transformation of the welfare states and marginalized communities calls for more community work. Another dilemma is that various forms of area-based initiatives to a great extent have been temporary projects without continuity in practice and research, although the problems in the communities are results of a long-term development and demand long-lasting strategies and continuous work.

However, new signs of recovery are in progress, as this special issue also shows. There is an increasing interest in the research and development of community work towards a structural and socially mobilizing practice. The articles show a broad spectrum ranging from area-based initiatives, feminist community work, interest-based community work and community work aiming for urban green commons. The common good and co-production of knowledge across sectors and discourses seems to be a crucial issue in the Nordic discussions about community work. It is a mix, where borders are blurred, but this does not only concern community work in the fragmented world of today. An important challenge for the strengthening of community work is to build networks and alliances, between actors from the public, civil society and private sectors such as social services, voluntary organizations, social movements and housing companies. These actors are often too weak themselves to create a strong community work, which is why it is important to elaborate innovative ways for cooperation and co-creation when and where that is possible.

Community work still makes a great challenge for the mainstream professional social work in the Nordic countries. However, the existing social and environmental challenges call all of us (politicians, practitioners, teachers and researchers) to respond to the existing challenges in a more structural and socially mobilizing manner. Social work needs to be renewed, and community work further discussed and developed in theory and practice. The existing socio-economic, socio-spatial, socio-existential and ecological challenges need to be elaborated more profoundly and promote joint actions across sectors and disciplines, together with those in concern. This special issue is an attempt to shed light on the situation and significance of community work in the Nordic countries today and to call for a common international discussion on this. We would like to thank the Swedish National Association of Social Work (CSA) for supporting this work. We thank all the authors, reviewers, the chief editor, the editorial board and the staff at Taylor and Francis for their important contributions to the first special issue of community work in the Nordic Social Work Research Journal.