Social Work and Mediation: Hemlock in the Flavour of the Month?

Abstract

This paper locates social work within the current mediation craze. It paints a scene in which mediation will pick up much of social work's traditional (and oppressive) conflict management agenda. Mediation's current popularity is juxtaposed with traditional (non-activist) social work's emerging unpopularity. The expanding frontiers of mediation are noted, not as a de novo experiment in conflict control, but rather as a desperate re-tooling of embattled capitalism's social control structure. The tight socio-legal philosophy of mediation is examined and summarised as the revisitation of the time-worn liberal world-view. A critique of mediation is offered, drawing heavily on the critical legal studies area. A plea is made to define conflict socially, not inter-personally.