This article targets the advancement of a market orientation in Swedish social work, with a specific focus on motivational work and the construction of the motivated client. Informed by a governmentality approach, the article analyses the formation of the ideal client in a market-oriented social work setting in Sweden. The empirical focus is front-line social workers and their work. The analysis is directed at the ways in which front-line social workers conceptualise the ideal client and how such a formation is made possible. The analysis contributes to problematising motivational work as something inherently good and progressive in neoliberal times, in social work practice as well as research. The main conclusions concerning the fabrication of motivated clients as part of a broader neoliberal agenda and challenges for social work are further reflected upon.
In recent years, an increasingly visible poverty has been widely debated in Sweden, not least in terms of 'vulnerable EU citizens'. Issues of EU-internal mobility have gained renewed interest as EU citizens have the legal right to move freely within the EU. The focus in this debate has been on poor EU citizens categorized as 'Roma'. In many respects, 'the Roma' have become a symbol for the mobility of poor people as a problem. The purpose of this article is to investigate contemporary discourses on poor people's mobility as a social problem, in the light of similar descriptions in the past. Starting with the 2010s, we analyse governmental reports from the 1950s and 1920s in which the mobility of poor people has been subjected to political debate. We draw upon a genealogical approach informed by Michel Foucault, focusing on the categorization of mobile poor people as problematic and deviant, in relation to what is conceptualized as the norm. In line with this approach, we analyse historical formations of particular 'regimes of truth' concerning the mobility of poor people. Our results show that the mobility of poor people is a recurring problem, even though in different ways at different times. The political responses to the problems caused by poor people's mobility range from disciplinary and excluding to assimilating interventions directed at the mobility of poor peoplein the 2010s represented by 'the vulnerable EU citizens', in the 1950s by 'the gypsies' and in the 1920s by 'the travellers'.
Marknadsreformer inom den svenska välfärdssektorn har öppnat för köp- och säljmodeller av välfärdstjänster. Den offentlig upphandlingen utgör navet för beställningar och utförande av tjänster inom socialtjänsten¬. Syftet med denna artikel är att undersöka hur socialt arbete formas i en upphandlingskontext, med särskilt fokus på hur socialarbetare som arbetar med att utföra upphandlade tjänster beskriver sitt arbete. Materialet utgörs av intervjuer med 16 utförare av sociala tjänster inom olika områden av upphandlat social arbete. Resultaten visar hur upphandlingen skapar särskilda ramar för det sociala arbetets utförande i form av avgränsningar i tid och antal, en kvantifiering av det arbete som utförs med klienter samt hur dessa ramar formar klienten som en beställning och ett ärende. Vidare visas hur utförare kompenserar för och hanterar de ramar som ges, för att på så vis möta klienternas behov. Resultaten aktualiserar frågor om det sociala arbetets möjligheter när det gäller tjänsternas avgränsning, specialisering och tidsramar.
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