Practice and Research in Social Work: Postmodern Feminist Perspectives

by Fawcett,Barbara

• ISBN13: 9780415195126
• ISBN10: 0415195128
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-12-02
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This volume appraises key issues in the contested fields of postmodernism and feminism, focusing on applications in relation to practice, research and education in social work. This book is among the first to apply postmodernist theory to social work and relate it to current debates.

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors	ix
Acknowledgements	xi
Introduction	1	(4)
Jan Fook
Brid Featherstone
Setting the scene: an appraisal of notions of postmodernism, postmodernity and postmodern feminism	5	(19)
Barbara Fawcett
Brid Featherstone
Introduction	5	(1)
Poststructural and postmodern perspectives	5	(2)
Feminism against postmodernism	7	(1)
The question of postmodernism	8	(2)
Feminism for postmodernism	10	(9)
Conclusion	19	(5)
The postmodern feminist condition: new conditions for social work	24	(15)
Amy Rossiter
The crisis of knowledge	24	(6)
The crisis of identity	30	(3)
Feminist postmodernism, social work and radical democracy	33	(6)
Reading the texts: postmodern feminism and the `doing' of research	39	(23)
Liz Trinder
Introduction	39	(1)
Three social work research trends	40	(10)
Poststructuralist/postmodern feminism and research practice	50	(2)
Analytic narrative analysis	52	(4)
Conclusion	56	(6)
Researching disability: meanings, interpretations and analysis	62	(21)
Barbara Fawcett
Introduction	62	(1)
`Disability': a contested area	63	(2)
Postmodern feminism	65	(4)
The deconstructive textual analysis: some considerations	69	(1)
Deconstructive textual analysis: an application	70	(4)
The application of reformulations drawn from postmodern feminism to disability and social work	74	(4)
Concluding remarks	78	(5)
A postmodern perpective on professional ethics	83	(21)
Amy Rossiter
Isaac Prilleltensky
Richard Walsh-Bowers
Introduction	83	(3)
Liberal humanism and professional ethics	86	(5)
Shifting the domain of ethics to social relations	91	(6)
Towards a postmodern conception of ethics	97	(7)
Deconstructing and reconstructing professional expertise	104	(16)
Jan Fook
Introduction	104	(1)
Challenges	105	(2)
Implications for social work	107	(1)
Challenges for professional expertise in social work	108	(1)
Researching professional expertise in social work	109	(2)
The study	111	(2)
Comparing the findings with modernist notions of expertise	113	(1)
Reconstructing professional expertise	114	(2)
Features of professional expertise in a postmodern context	116	(4)
Researching into mothers' violence: some thoughts on the process	120	(16)
Brid Featherstone
Introduction	120	(1)
A suitable topic for a feminist?	121	(3)
A question of method	124	(2)
Topic suitability	126	(4)
Analysing data	130	(2)
A word on the fit between theory and method	132	(2)
Conclusion	134	(2)
Researching profeminist men's narratives: participatory methodologies in a postmodern frame	136	(23)
Bob Pease
Introduction	136	(1)
Rethinking feminist standpoint theory	137	(3)
The possibility of profeminist men's standpoints	140	(2)
Participatory approaches to research	142	(2)
Consciousness-raising as research	144	(3)
Collective memory-work	147	(3)
Sociological interventions in masculinity politics	150	(3)
Making sense of profeminism for men	153	(1)
Conclusion	154	(5)
For ever beyond	159	(17)
Lindsey Napier
Introduction	159	(3)
Certainty	162	(2)
Competing certainties	164	(2)
Subjectivity	166	(3)
Normality	169	(1)
Contingency	169	(1)
Professional practice knowledge	170	(1)
Body work	171	(1)
Places for dying	172	(1)
Beyond my grasp?	173	(3)
Feminist postmodernism in the South African context	176	(16)
Vivienne Bozalek
Introduction	176	(1)
South African social work	177	(1)
The use of difference in South African welfare policy	178	(8)
Problems and potentials of feminist postmodern perspectives in the South African context	186	(6)
Index	192