Networks of power and counterpower in social work with children and families in England

Abstract

This article applies the work of Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells to contemporary children and families’ social work in England. Castells’ work suggests that the intractability of many of the issues facing the profession is the result of the new type of society that emerged around the turn of the millennium: the network society. Within this society, the interests and values of dominant networks are imposed upon those who are selectively excluded. Several challenges for the social work profession stemming from this analysis are posed, including in relation to challenging networks and promoting transparency. However, it is suggested that the most significant contribution Castells’ work has for social work lies in shifting the discussion from an analysis of dominant networks, as has been undertaken elsewhere, towards an understanding of how social workers can, and do, build networks of counterpower capable of effectively challenging dominant networks in the space they occupy.

Impact of Social Media on Child Prostitution Network in Pontianak City (Case Study of Rumah Aman Kota Pontianak)

“…Utilisation by these individuals encourages the formation of information technology networks. A situation that leads to multidimensional changes such as economic, political, social and cultural (Hanley, 2021). In a network society, what applies is network logic.…”

Eviscerating equality: Normative whiteness and Conservative equality policy

“…Sewell’s is a progress narrative (Hemmings, 2011) that casts the need for heroism and rebellion as situated in the past, and as no longer necessary. This narrative both reassures the majority white population that nothing radical is required, since the UK has already ‘fundamentally shifted’ to a more open society, and tasks minority communities with doing a better job of participating in the opportunities that have been offered them.…”

“…Social policy scholarship has long recognised the importance of seeing social policy as a site of discursive construction that makes some things sayable in the policy field while silencing or marginalising others, and of the value of focusing on the relations of meaning that are internal to the discourses embedded in policies themselves (Lewis, 2000). The ways in which dominant discourse feeds into and helps to solidify networks of power and influence within social policy fields is one area of concern (see Hanley, 2021). Another is how the discursive framing of policies, and the discursive repertoires these policies draw on bolster particular political strategies (Clark and Newman, 2012).…”

“…I would argue that an attention to the narrative logic and structure of such documents can also add something of value to these considerations of the role of discourse in social policy. Looking at policy documents for the narratives they construct – what Hemmings (2011) calls their ‘political grammar’ -- can add to our understanding of both their discursive and material effects. There has already been some work to apply the techniques of narrative analysis to social policy documents (Fairclough 2010, Wiggan 2012, Gedalof 2018), and I continue this approach here to consider the emerging Conservative narrative on race and equality policy.…”

“…First, by imposing a particular chronology, narratives constitute the past and give it specific meanings in relation to present and future. In policy debates, the effective narrative will cast previous governments and policies which it aims to replace as things that needs to be moved beyond in order to move forward, what Hemmings (2011) has called a ‘progress narrative.’ Narrative drive and flow can establish what seems to be an inevitable progression through the relations it constitutes between its version of the past and its promise for the future. Second, the classic narrative device of plotting the build-up to a crisis which is then resolved is crucial to justifying policy changes, especially in a political context in which ‘crisis’ becomes a major framing logic.…”