This paper examines the phenomenal growth of social work in China and the complexities and challenges faced by the profession and related stakeholders in the context of neoliberal economic practice within a hierarchical top-down political system. It proposes developmental social work as a viable indigenous social work practice mode. This analysis based on a collection of academic papers and relevant government reports sheds light on the interplay between welfare developmentalism, institutional dynamics, and professional challenges in the broader sociopolitical context, not least the neoliberal co-optation of social development aligned increasingly with economic goals to the detriment of broader social and structural issues. It shows how the political parameters of the Chinese Communist Party and its pursuit of community integration and social development shaped China’s approach to social work. It sees the necessity for a system of welfare services to address socio-structural issues and the indigenization and cultural adaption of social work in China as an expressly political process. Regarding the former, the government’s strategy of outsourcing public services to accord with its agenda has resulted in a contractual relationship between social organizations, including nongovernment and social work organizations, and the state. This has limited the independence and hindered the development of a strong civil society, and curtailed social workers’ autonomy, exacerbating professional challenges relating inter alia to the low number of qualified social work practitioners, limited job opportunities outside major urban centers, high staff turnover, and poor quality services provided by those without formal social work training. To enhance professional recognition in China, the paper suggests a holistic developmental approach that involves the resolution of individual problems through investing in people, helping them to build their capacity, drawing on social capital, and capitalizing on market opportunities to promote self-reliance, thereby contributing to community and social development.
Areas of social development are manifestations of Social Reality (SR) which defines possibilities and barriers to achieving a better life. An argument is made to unravel the “dialectic” of a broken society in the post-imperialist world. At the heart of Liberatory Development, one must recognize the lethality of coloniality and its vestiges that incubate a culture of dehumanizing subjugation, urbicidal inequality, and global injustice. A Kaleidoscopic view of human misery and our failure to address fundamental issues signifies the call for needed praxis.
A sexual instinct is a basic biological urge in humans to experience sexual pleasure and beget progeny through sexual relations. However, it is considered a sacred act of procreation in Indian culture and society. For most Indians, a woman is a personification of the mother goddess and her sexuality is a sacramental subject of worship. But the gulf between the ideal imagery and the real-life situation of a woman is a glitch in her sexual expression and choices. Irrespective of the projection of women’s inherent sexual energy as being sacred, it is deeply controlled and structured by social institutions. She is not a free sexual being but a situated mother; her sexual choices are located within the institution of marriage maintained exclusively for getting a male heir for the family lineage. This paper expounds and explores the pervasive but ignored women’s unseen sexual coercion in the form of maternal choice in Indian society. The dichotomy presented in the symbolic representations of the mother goddess’s powerful sexuality—illustrated in mythologies and scriptures, and the social construction of real-life mothers’ sexuality influence their choices. It also investigates how her maternal sexual choices are devalued, and viewed as unreal, unethical, and sinful activity. Lastly, it may be said that the divine projection of women as mother Goddesses and the exaltation of their procreative capacity deprive them of their sexual choices. It appears as a free choice but there is a hidden coercion that women fail to understand is the greatest cause of their sexual enslavement.
In many developing countries assignment of agricultural responsibilities is based on social and cultural norms. In Africa and Kenya, women take on most of the roles that involve spending long hours and use of lots of energy. The research objectives were to examine the effect of restricted access and land control in tea farming on gender equity in Singorwet ward of Bomet County. A cross-sectional study design was used and a sample size of 532 tea farmers’ respondents (comprising 431 male tea farmers and 101 female tea farmers), two directors, and 10 farm laborers were involved in this study. Purposive sampling was used to pick two director zones in the Singorwet ward and stratified random sampling to pick five tea-buying centers within Singorwet Zone and Mugango Zone. Questionnaires, interviews, and observation schedules were used for data collection. From the findings, all major decisions on tea farming rest with the men, as well as all gender equity indices and access to and control of financial services in tea farming. The overall gender parity ratio stood at 0.2 which was in favor of men. This was also evident in directorship where woman directors appeared under nomination and not election. This study recommends thorough community awareness programs on land rights within the Kenyan Constitution 2010.
Social workers are tasked with the responsibility of pursuing environmental justice to diminish environmental risks for impoverished, minority, and disadvantaged communities that have been disproportionately impacted. While social work literature addresses the topic of environmental justice, few articles discuss its root issues of poverty and racism in the environment. Through a systematic review of peer-reviewed journals from 2015 through 2021, this study identified 27 articles that focus on the intersection of social work, environmental justice, poverty, and racism. Findings reveal three common categories of articles, their themes, and publication trends. Social work education was the most common category (40.7 percent), followed by review articles and case studies (37.0 percent), and community-based research (22.2 percent). The results of this study indicate that more research is needed in all areas related to poverty and racism in environmental justice social work.
To celebrate the golden jubilee of the International Consortium for Social Development (ICSD), this article looks at the origin, formation, and purpose of the ICSD, key leaders who led the consortium, its main activities and achievements, and prospects in the years to come. Drawing mainly on the secondary literature and the author’s reflections, the analysis affirms and appreciates that the ICSD was formed on sound grounds and the vision of the leaders who pioneered the ICSD was well thought of as the ideas of social development are increasingly relevant in the contemporary and emerging contexts. Acknowledging the leaders and members who have sustained the consortium for 50 years, it commends its three critical activities: biennial internal conferences; Social Development Issues, a flagship journal of the ICSD; and conceptualizing and theorizing social development, which has contributed to creating and spreading the knowledge of social development worldwide. It also has gradually expanded its activities through its branches. Although there are challenges to articulating its contribution to the theory and practice of social development, ICSD’s role in facilitating it, directly or indirectly, at least to some extent, cannot be denied. The article invites us to pose and ponder, whether the ICSD should have done more and or differently. It argues that such individual and collective reflections help us to envision, plan, and act together for the ICSD, fostering promising futures.
Due to systemic violence and human rights violations in Myanmar, many ethnic minorities, including Karen, have fled the country. Many Karen refugees from camps in Thailand and Malaysia were resettled in the United States. Despite having access to multiple resources and opportunities, the Karen face challenges related to health, housing, education, employment, and culture. This paper aims to broaden our understanding of the needs and challenges of Karen refugees living in Hartford, Connecticut, through a qualitative, narrative-based research study. Lessons learned will help nongovernmental organizations, mental health professionals, and social workers to develop and implement programs and policies for refugee resettlement and integration in a culturally competent manner that is based on the values, strengths, and resilience of the refugee Karen community.
Areas of social development are manifestations of Social Reality (SR) which defines possibilities and barriers to achieving a better life. An argument is made to unravel the “dialectic” of a broken society in the post-imperialist world. At the heart of Liberatory Development, one must recognize the lethality of coloniality and its vestiges that incubate a culture of dehumanizing subjugation, urbicidal inequality, and global injustice. A Kaleidoscopic view of human misery and our failure to address fundamental issues signifies the call for needed praxis.
In modern times, when short-term survival appears to be a granted thing for humans, our focus has been on making progress riding on waves of science, technology, and our never-ending quest for being better and superior. In this race, we are losing sight of the critical need for capabilities, means, and ends to be sustainable. In a global society, achieving inclusive and sustainable growth can be made possible by focusing on the key pillars of—people, culture, and mindset. People through their actions, the culture of sustainability by binding us together in this journey, and a mindset that brings fo-cus on keeping sustainability at the center of every thought, idea, and perspective that gets developed and brought into action, can directly impact sustainability. This paper attempts to examine the role that the suggested framework with dimensions—people, culture, and mindset can play in achieving inclusive and sustainable growth.
Living without adequate shelter is a major problem in and of itself. The creation of adequate housing is a structural issue that requires development actors and the government to prioritize and build low-income housing. If the shortage of low-income housing is solved, homelessness will end. However, while homelessness continues to exist, health issues are unavoidable and inherent in the problem. Consequently, addressing the health of homeless persons is important from both a relief and humanitarian perspective. This study describes homeless people’s health challenges in Ethiopia. The exploratory design of this study utilizes in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 34 homeless persons, key informant interviews with three government officials, and multiple rounds of participant observation. Tables show detailed responses as a way of identifying common themes from various data sources. Thematic data analysis shows that persons experiencing homelessness have pitiful hygiene and sanitation practices. They are affected by physical health challenges including diabetes, high blood pressure, epilepsy, respiratory diseases, stomach problems, HIV, skin infections, injury, and foot trauma. Homeless people are susceptible to mental health problems, including insomnia and sleeping disorders, depression, personality disorders, and schizophrenia. Understanding homeless health challenges can inform policymakers, humanitarian programs, and researchers to take action to abate the severity of health issues among the street homeless in Ethiopia.
Significant poverty levels raise critical questions about the impact of poverty eradication programs. Literature reviews play a critical role in highlighting impactful and ineffective socio-economic approaches. This article presents a review of nine qualitative studies that were reported between 2006 and 2013 in poor urban, semi-rural, and rural communities in South Africa. The main goal of this paper is to describe how low-income communities were impacted by programs to reduce poverty. Themes on strength-based interventions, participation, and holistic-multidimensional approaches, emerge from the content analysis as the best account of the impact of community-based poverty eradication programs. Due to the qualitative nature of the small sample of studies under review, a thematic synthesis of the qualitative data provides baseline evidence for further research to assess progress in the provision of development programs, and to generate more insight to strengthen evidence-informed approaches to address persistently high rates of poverty.
This article is written from the author’s position as a Vimukta woman and an advocate of feminism. The article attempts to include the unique situatedness of Vimukta in the discourse on caste violence in education. In doing so, it critically revisits the decade-old ongoing debate over the question, can Savarna feminists write on the experience of Dalit, Adivasi, and Vimukta women? The article highlights the limitations of the claim that empathy makes the experiences of Dalit, Adivasi, and Vimukta women accessible to Savarna feminists. It engages with the writings on the website “Savari” in which women belonging to Dalit, Adivasi, Vimukta, and backward communities share their articulation about their situation in caste society and call out the violence in Savarna feminists’ academic endeavors.
This article catches up with the latest trend in social sciences that has silently spread out across a larger spectrum of academic disciplines, which is quantum-inspired theory building. The method applied is theory building, and the theory built is a metatheory that encompasses all forms of human communication. The theory works with the least common denominators of communication, with words, and anything that is constructed using words or that can be expressed in words (including thoughts and feelings). The author has set up a general theory of human communication, and hence human action, integrating not only Michel Foucault’s theory of power relations but also other main social theories that corroborate one another. The key to the new metatheory of human entanglement are the hidden forces that prevent, impede, encourage, and bring about new thoughts and new words uttered, and hence new human decision-making and action. There are many dimensions of human entanglements that specific disciplines need to get hold of and investigate further. This article merely provides a springboard for future research investigations, including further theory construction in all disciplines and topics related to interpersonal and intrapersonal human communication, and human action.
This article examines the multifaceted challenges posed by the current global conflict landscape, emphasizing the interconnectedness of development, security, and peace. Firstly, the article highlights the increase in both state and non state conflicts, with fatalities nearly doubling from 2021 to 2022. This escalation is marked by significant conflicts like the Russia–Ukraine war and the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia, contributing to the deterioration of global security. The analysis also touches on the failure of regional and international organizations such as the African Union, ASEAN, and the United Nations in effectively managing these conflicts and maintaining peace. Secondly, the article delves into the evolving nature of warfare, including the rise of digital attacks and hybrid warfare, which blend conventional and unconventional tactics. This section underscores the need for a new, comprehensive peace architecture to address the array of modern threats, including climate change and pandemics, which extend beyond traditional military concerns. Finally, the article discusses the concerning decline of anti-war movements in the West, particularly in light of recent conflicts like the Ukraine war. This decline is attributed to various factors, including the perception of Western military actions as inherently benevolent and the shift in activism focus to issues like climate change and social justice. The article argues that this decline has profound implications for democratic processes and the global pursuit of peace.
Social development emerged like a Phenix in the post-war reconstruction. In the wake of global traumas, development movement manifested itself across the nations, especially those devastated by the horrors and terror of the world war. The Third World, better construed as the Global South, is now rising from the shadows of a dubious duality— advanced and developing—of panorama of nations bedeviled by the persistence of tribal nationalism. Fissures and antagonisms—old and new—have surfaced anew. The dynamics of this development are the foci of a new conceptualization that might liberate the human family from its own nemesis.
The following article is a revised version of the 2021 Khinduka Lecture given at the 22nd Biennial Meeting of the International Consortium for Social Development (ICSD) held in Johannesburg, South Africa in July 2021. The lecture discusses the concepts of change and progress, which have played a prominent role in social development thinking over the years. It reviews some of the changes that have taken place during Professor Khinduka’s lifetime, noting that there have been huge shifts in geopolitics, economics, living standards, attitudes, communications, and science and technology. It then asks whether these changes have brought real progress to the world’s people and considers different views on the subject by leading thinkers. In contrast to the views of those who take a pessimistic view with those who have reached optimistic conclusions, it suggests that the situation is mixed, with progress being recorded in some fields but not in others. It concludes by asking how social development advocates can bring about progressive change and progress.
