Wooden spoons and “pulling the mom card”: A critical discourse-historical analysis of an interview with a social worker

Abstract

Despite increasing acknowledgement within and beyond the social work profession of our role in enacting violence against people we claim to care for and serve, discursive strategies that rationalize and naturalize violence are endemic within social work discourse. In this article, I use critical discourse-historical analysis to examine one interview I conducted with a practicing social worker in Alberta, Canada. Grounded in an intersectional critical approach to inquiry, I elucidate how rationalization strategies for professional violence emerge in ordinary social work talk and situate one social worker’s description of her practice within a historical context of the fabrication of social work in Canada. I focus on this social worker’s reports of threatening clients with a “virtual wooden spoon” to identify linguistic and discursive patterns at play and their semiotic significance as means to rationalize and normalize professional power and control. I specifically situate the analysis within the context of social work as a story of racist, classist, and ableist violence often committed by morally exalted, wealthy, white women. I conclude by reflecting on the importance of examining discursive strategies to rationalize, dismiss or diminish violence in our everyday social work talk.