Open Seminar
How to notice Subtle Differences to contribute to more Sustainable approaches in Social Work?
17 ottobre 2019, 14:30 – 17:30, Room E1 Polo Piagge
Flyer: HERE
Speaker: Randi Edland Kroken, Associate Professor in Social Work at University of Agder
Foreward: Matteo Villa, Gregory Bateson’s world of difference: a brief introduction
Abtract: Several implications of neoliberalism in the Western World since the 1990s threatens human values in Social Work. How by the Gregory Bateson perspective, particulary in the light of his quote “a difference that makes a difference”, our understanding of the current situation in Social work may be enhanced? How supporting our sensitivity on subtle control mechanisms work, on the risks of the new governance and on potentials of tiny differences in fostering positivive answers?
Randi Edland Kroken holds a doctorate in social work. She has researched how concrete responsibility is transformed in the welfare state as a system. From being a concrete phenomenon at the grassroots level, responsibility appears to turn into something more abstract and floating at the macro level. The result is that social workers get squeezed in practice. The challenge is to explore how language, theoretical, but also literary perspectives can strengthen an understanding of what is happening in practice and how one can convey voices from a soft sector in order to look more closely upon how social work is situated in a wider cultural and social landscape.
