As the percentage of people working in the service economy continues to rise, there is a need to examine workplace harm within low-paid, insecure, flexible and short-term forms of ‘affective labour’. This is the first book to discuss harm through an ultra-realist lens and examines the connection between individuals, their working conditions and management culture.
Using data from a long-term ethnographic study of the service economy, it investigates the reorganisation of labour markets and the shift from security to flexibility, a central function of consumer capitalism. It highlights working conditions and organisational practices which employees experience as normal and routine but within which multiple harms occur.
Challenging current thinking within sociology and policy analysis, it reconnects ideology and political economy with workplace studies and uses examples of legal and illegal activity to demonstrate the multiple harms within the service economy.
Once hidden behind the veils of entrepreneurship, it is now clear that platforms are reshaping the world of work, and Amazon has been a forerunner in setting the trend.
This book examines two key and contrasting Amazon platforms that differ in how they organize workers: its e-commerce platform and digital labor platform (Mechanical Turk). With access to the people who are working at the heart of these platforms, it explores how different working conditions alienate workers, and how, despite these conditions, workers organize within their political-economic contexts to express their agency in traditional and alternative ways.
Written for social scientists, studying and researching the platform economy, this is a timely and important analysis of work and workers on the (digital) shop floor.
Labour exploitation is a highly topical though complex issue that has international resonance for those concerned with social justice and social welfare, but there is a lack of research available about it. This book, part of the Studies in Social Harm series, is the first to look at labour exploitation from a social harm perspective, arguing that, as a global social problem, it should be located within the broader study of work-based harm.
Written by an expert in policy orientated research, he critiques existing approaches to the study of workplace exploitation, abuse and forced labour. Mapping out a new sub-discipline, this innovative book aims to shift power from employers to workers to reduce levels of labour exploitation and work-based harm. It is relevant to academics from many fields as well as legislators, policy makers, politicians, employers, union officials, activists and consumers.
This collection charts the key developments in the social work field from 1970 to the present day and shows how by fully understanding social work’s past, we can make better progress for practitioners and service users in the future.
It brings together a broad collection of experts from across social work who trace how thinking and approaches to practice have changed over time, examine key legislative developments in the field, look at the impacts of major inquiries and consider the re-emergence of certain specialisms.
Providing students and practitioners of social work and social policy with a full picture of the evolution of social work, it also shares important insights for its future directions.
Rogowski’s second edition of this bestselling textbook responds to the major changes to social work practice since the first edition was published. It is fully revised and updated to include new material that is essential for students and practising social workers today.
Taking a critical perspective, Rogowski evaluates social work’s development, nature and rationale over approximately 150 years. He explores how neoliberalism is at the core of the profession’s crisis and calls for progressive, critical and radical changes to social work policy and practices based on social justice and social change.
This new edition is substantially updated to explore:
• the impact of austerity policies since 2010;
• failures to realise the progressive possibilities which followed the death of ‘Baby P’;
• contemporary examples of critical and radical practice.
It also includes a range of student-friendly features including chapter summaries, key learning and discussion points, and further reading.
What is the relationship between social work and the state? Who controls which services needs are addressed and how? This important book looks at social work responses in different countries to extreme social, economic and political situations in order to answer these questions. Examples include: war situations, military regimes, earthquakes and Tsunamis. The results show the innovative nature of grass-roots provision and social work intervention and will be of interest to all social work academics, students and professionals.
Social work education has developed internationally over the past 50 years as part of wider processes of economic and cultural globalization. Diverse political and social events across the world have shaped social work and its education, leading to aims and methods that are shared and contested.
This book brings together, through 13 interviews and biographies, the lives, experiences and contributions of leading social work educators from Comoros, the Caribbean, India, Mexico, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom. Their receipt of IASSW’s Katherine Kendall Award recognized that they were at the forefront of establishing and securing social work education during this period of internationalization.
Exploring the aims and priorities of these leading social work educators, Askeland and Payne draw out a historical and contextual account of how social work education became widely adopted in different national and cultural environments. The Awardees’ diverse lives and professional experiences reveal the issues they faced, the paths they travelled and the prospects and threats confronting social work and its education more widely.
Exploring various aspects of social work from an anthropological perspective, this original book uses an ‘outsider’ position to develop a reflexive dialogue with social workers from England and elsewhere in Europe.
Bell, an anthropologist, worked alongside social work educators and social workers for many years. She widens our insights into social work by offering thought-provoking examples suggesting how social work practitioners view their occupation and their practice, and how wider society views them.
Blending research and personal reflection to critically examine social workers’ preoccupations and contributions to society, the author explores identities and definitions in social work, making this book refreshing reading for academics, researchers, students and practitioners.
Created to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Bailey and Brake’s seminal text Radical Social Work (1975), this volume seeks to explore the radical tradition within social work and assess its legacy, relevance and prospects.
With a foreword by Roy Bailey, the book brings together leading academics within social work in Britain to reflect on the legacy of Radical Social Work (both the original text and the wider social movement) within social work education, theory and practice.
With the current issues facing social work in Britain, this book examines the radical tradition to assert that ‘another social work is possible’.
