Interrogating culture: Anthropology, social work, and the concept trade

Abstract

Summary Interdisciplinary contributions to social work have supported the profession’s development as a helping profession. Indeed, drawing from other disciplines has been a way to hone intervention approaches. This article analyzes the history of social work’s use of anthropological theory about “culture” in order to critically examine the profession’s positioning as a “recipient” of theories. At a time when evidence-based practice is a dominant ideal, this paper offers an opportunity to step back and interrogate a key concept, culture, that is often evoked as interventions are tailored for various populations. Findings While social work has substantially debated and revised how it approaches culture difference, the core conceptualization of culture as a relatively static set of shared values and traits remains ill-suited to the complex negotiation of diversity in social work practice. The limitations of the culture concept are symptomatic of an exchange relationship with anthropology that positions social work practitioners primarily as recipients of concepts, rather than as interlocutors. Application By treating intervention as an opportunity for theory revision, anthropologists and social workers can better account for the hybridity, change, and contestation of difference in social work practice. As the social work profession expands globally, a more dialogical engagement with anthropological theories about culture and other key concepts may prove fruitful.

Social work and anthropology: Traversing, trading, and translating across boundaries

“…Current applications of the iceberg theory of culture, for instance, continue to reify culture as a bounded system of shared beliefs, even as anthropologists have moved to a more interactional approach. As we argue in an earlier paper, such a conceptualization of culture distorts "complex, shifting, and politically charged differences into static stereotypes" (Mathias et al, 2020). Stereotypes are ill-suited to the complex contingencies of social work practice, in which practitioners often encounter people who neither "belong to" nor "identify with" a single group, but actively engage in performing different social identities according to the political implications in different situations.…”

“…Exchanges between anthropologists and social workers have often been defined by three different modes of engagement. The first has to do with anthropology's contribution to social work research and theory, particularly with respect to concept trading, wherein scholars share theories, ideas, questions, and insights that might be valued differently by each field (Mathias et al, 2020). Take, for example, the culture concept.…”

“…Ultimately, the way culture is defined or bounded has significant implications for approaches and interventions. When concept trading resembles a donor-recipient model, both anthropologists and social workers hazard the loss of the enriched and nuanced understandings that each discipline has to offer the other (Mathias et al, 2020).…”