Real power. The power to make decisions. For 15 years, I’ve described the work I do as youth community organizing, or youth participatory democracy. The idea at first was to get young people more involved in the public sphere, some ideal of more democratic governance and activist young people. Increasingly, it has become crystal clear […]
Whether self-help or helping profession, the act of improving the human and their well-being will become increasingly relegated to the efforts of algorithms. ChatGPT and its siblings are merely the latest and most visible actors in this game. The use of robots to provide physical help and company to the elderly, apps that surveil and […]
I teach bachelors and masters social work students, who by and large enter the profession with eyes wide open to the challenges our profession manages, which they encounter daily, while face to face with clients who are involved in a Sisyphean struggle against the forces of capitalism, racism, colonialism, etc. that place a person in […]
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What follows is an experimental essay I originally drafted in April 2013 applying Bakhtin’s exploration of the polyphonic to a standardized and simplified model of social work case notes. I lean on Timothy Lensmire’s interpretation of Bakhtin for use in teaching writing and Janis Fook’s exploration of radical case work. The essay was originally titled […]
A presentation I gave at the Minnesota Social Services Association (MSSA) in March, 2014. This was the first iteration of an ongoing series of presentations and writing on the political economy and infrastructures of “data”, as well as the concept of #DataJustice. The goals of this session were to: (1) spark conversation, debate, and collaboration around the use […]
This weekend, I read several papers by Ann Masten and colleagues (see references below) on the topic of Risk and Resilience. Risk is defined as anything which endangers positive and healthy development–trauma, war, violence, abuse, and so forth. Resilience is the “ordinary magic” that helps “people overcome risk or adversity to succeed in life” (Masten, […]
Social work practice and research are divided, contested spaces. There are many divisions in social work, and in my education at both the masters and Ph.D. level, these divisions occupy an incredible amount of our time and energy. In the arena of practice, we construct arguments between micro and macro practice; between different models of […]
Rather than engagement, which evokes a sense that we are focusing on something static, completed, or defined, my experience in community work has centered around engaging – an ongoing and fluid process of engagement. In my experience, engaging involves a process of defying social expectations in ways that provide real space for connection. This can […]
I believe that community is constituted through stories. Four stories about my understanding community: Community – an attitude and orientation: Framed by cubicle walls and the front desk, the office I work in looks similar to any other at a university. What makes it a community is its residents’ attitudes. Every staff member is woven […]