1st Edition

Post-Anthropocentric Social Work Critical Posthuman and New Materialist Perspectives

Edited By Vivienne Bozalek, Bob Pease Copyright 2021
    254 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    254 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book seeks to trouble taken-for-granted assumptions of anthropocentrism and humanism in social work - those which perpetuate human privilege and human exceptionalism. The edited collection provides a different imaginary for social work by introducing ways of thinking otherwise that challenge human exceptionalism.

    Social work is at heart a liberal humanist project informed by a strong human rights framework. This edited collection draws on the literature on affect, feminist new materialism and critical posthumanism to critique the liberal framework, which includes human rights. Disrupting the anthropocentrism in social work which positions humans as an elite species at the centre of world history, this book develops an ethical sensibility that values entanglements of humans, non-human life and the natural environment.

    The book provides new insights into environmental destruction, human-animal relations, gender inequality and male dominance, as well as indigenous and settler/colonial issues and critical and green social work. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of social work, community development, social policy and development studies more broadly.

    List of Tables, Figures and Images

    Notes on contributors

    Foreword
    Mathew Arthur

    Preface

    Acknowledgements

    1. Towards Post-Anthropocentric Social Work
      Vivienne Bozalek and Bob Pease
    2. Part One: Philosophical Foundations of Post-Anthropocentric Social Work

    3. What Comes After the Subject? Towards a Critical Posthumanist Social Work
      Stephen A. Webb
    4. An Invitation into the Trouble with Humanism for Social Work
      Tina E. Wilson
    5. Restorative and Regenerative Relational Praxis Must Include the Non-human
      Jacques Boulet
    6. A Philosophy of Social Work Beyond the Anthropocene.
      Karen Bell
    7. Feeling the ‘Weight of the Body’: Posthumanism and De-liberalising Social Work
      John Fox
    8. Part Two: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Doing Post-Anthropocentric Social Work

    9. Propositions for Slow Social Work
      Vivienne Bozalek
    10. Ecofeminism to Feminist Materialism: Implications for Anthropocene Feminist Social Work
      Carolyn Noble
    11. Fostering Non-Anthropocentric Vulnerability in Men: Challenging the Autonomous Masculine Subject in Social Work
      Bob Pease
    12. Return of the Posthuman: Developing Indigenist Perspectives for Social Work at a Time of Environmental Crisis
      Glenn Woods and Dorothee Hölscher
    13. More-Than-Human Community Work: The Affirmative Biopolitics of Life in a Glasgow Neighbourhood
      Heather Lynch
    14. Posthumanism, Sexualities Education and the Production of Citizenship
      Pam Alldred, Nick Fox and Yohai Hakak
    15. Part Three: More-than-Human Sites of Practice in Post-Anthropocentric Social Work

    16. Animals as Domestic Violence Victims: A Challenge to Humanist Social Work
      Heather Fraser and Nik Taylor
    17. Towards a Critical Posthumanist Social Work: Trans-Species Ethics of Ecological Justice, Nonviolence and Love
      Dyann Ross, Bindi Bennett and Natalie Menyweather
    18. Encountering Interspecies Homelessness: Resisting Anthroparchy in Social Work and the All-Too-Human Services
      Melissa Laing
    19. Natureculture Dilemmas in Northern Finland: Guiding Post-Anthropocentric Social Work Through the Mire
      Satu Ranta-Tyrkkö
    20. Hauntology, History and Heritage: Intergenerational Trauma in South African Displaced Families
      Shanaaz Hoosain and Vivienne Bozalek

    Biography

    Vivienne Bozalek is Emerita Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of the Western Cape, and Honorary Professor in the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning at Rhodes University, South Africa.

    Bob Pease is Adjunct Professor in the Institute for Social Change at the University of Tasmania and an Honorary Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University.