1st Edition
Post-Pandemic Welfare and Social Work Re-imagining the New Normal
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a critical juncture in the development of the welfare state affirming its importance for its citizens’ economic, health and wellbeing, and safety, especially for its most vulnerable populations. It demonstrated that the crisis preparedness that is crucial for an effective protection of its citizens, the ultimate purpose of the welfare state, unquestionably exceeds the narrow horizon of a corporatised welfare industry with its singular focus on the maximisation of profit for the elites and cost containment for the government. Social workers need to engage with the contradictions and tensions that spring from underfunded welfare services and engage in the political struggle over a well-resourced welfare state.
Contributors to this book take on this challenge. By tracing the various contradictions of the pandemic, the contributors reflect on new ways of thinking about welfare by exploring what to keep, what to challenge and what to change. By highlighting important challenges for a social justice-focused response as well as exploring the many challenges exposed by the pandemic facing social work for the coming decades, contributors critically outline pathways in social work that might contribute to the shaping of a less cruel and more capable welfare state. Using case-studies from Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia, Italy, Slovenia, Estonia, Sweden, Spain, South Africa, Canada, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, China and the United States, the book features 19 chapters by leading experts.
This book will be of interest to all social work scholars, students and practitioners, as well as those working in social policy and health more broadly.
Chapter One - Post-Pandemic Social Work and the Welfare State
Goetz Ottmann and Carolyn Noble
Chapter Two – Communovirus: Ethical community for social work in a ‘post’ COVID world
Stephen A. Webb
Chapter Three – The Modern Welfare State and the Post-Pandemic World
Toba Bryant and Dennis Raphael
Chapter Four – Post-Pandemic Social Work and The Death of Neo-liberalism
Goetz Ottmann
Chapter Five – Social Work in the Post-COVID State: Emancipatory or the Long Arm of the Control and Coercion
Donna Baines
Chapter Six – The convergence between neoliberalism and digital technology: Awakening individual and societal consciousness for a sustainable, resilient and just post-pandemic world
Vishanthie Sewpaul
Chapter Seven – Is The Genie Out of The Bottle? Societal and Political Implications of Domestic Military Deployments During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Kristine Eck and Chiara Ruffa
Chapter Eight – Feminist Response to COVID-19: Is it time for feminist social policies?
Carolyn Noble
Chapter Nine – Disrupting Masculinism in Public Policy Responses to COVID-19 - Unmasking the Gendered Dimensions of the Pandemic
Bob Pease
Chapter Ten – Re-imagining the Place for Social Work in the Post-Pandemic Welfare: Lessons from the Italian Experience
Mara Sanfelici
Chapter Eleven – More Trouble in a Welfare Paradise: Sweden’s Problematic Welfare Policy and Practice Response to the Pandemic
Keith Pringle, Ann-Sofie Bergman and Maria Eriksson
Chapter Twelve – Multidimensional, multicultural and inclusive approaches to social welfare in post-pandemic Australia
Kate Jonathan and Trevor G. Gates
Chapter Thirteen – Grassroots Solidarity in Social Work: Strengthening the Welfare State beyond COVID-19 through Social Impact in the field of Child Abuse
Ariadna Munté-Pascual, Esther Roca, Gisela Redondo-Sama and Sandra Racionero-Plaza
Chapter Fourteen – The silencing of social workers during COVID-19 emergency measures: an assessment
Darja Zaviršek
Chapter Fifteen – Examining China’s response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflections of social workers from the field
Zhaoen Pan, Huifang Fan, Tejaswini Patil and Manohar Pawar
Chapter Sixteen – Welfare policy statements during the mega-crisis: challenges for Estonia
Reeli Sirotkina, Riina Kiik, Kersti Kriisk and Airi Mitendorf
Chapter Seventeen – A Moment of Fuzziness: Connections between shifting notions of ‘home’ and welfare arrangements ‘back home’ for Black Zimbabwean migrants living under Covid 19 travel restrictions in Australia
Clement Chihota
Chapter Eighteen – Covid in Black Australia
Marcus Woolombi Waters
Chapter Nineteen – Covid-19 and the Welfare State - Social Work’s Practice and Policy
Carolyn Noble and Goetz Ottmann
Biography
Goetz Ottmann is a senior social work lecturer and a member of the Future Regions Research Centre at Federation University. His research has focused on participatory, community-based social services and public policies in aged and disability care. He has extensive experience in qualitative and action research methodologies and has led several multi-methods programme evaluations. His theoretical work revolves around the application of critical social theories to a wide range of social work topics. He has held senior positions in public and private tertiary education.
Carolyn Noble is Emerita Professor of Social Work at ACAP, Sydney, and Emerita Professor of Social Work at Victoria University, Melbourne. Senior Research Associate, Johannesburg University, South Africa. She is editor-in-chief of open access social issues magazine for IASSW (www.socialdialogue.online). Her most recent books are Radicals in Australian Social Work (co-editor, Connor Court, 2017), The Challenge of Right-wing Nationalist Populism for Social Work. (co-editor, Routledge, 2020). The Routledge Handbook of Critical Pedagogies for Social Work (co-editor. Routledge, 2021).
