Nadine Cameron - Social Work and the Body

Nadine Cameron
and
Fiona McDermott

Nadine Cameron and Fiona McDermott 2007

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2007 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world.

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martins Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries.

ISBN-13: 9781403943309
ISBN-10: 1403943303

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07

Printed in China

We wish to acknowledge the support and interest of our colleagues in the writing of this book, especially those in the School of Social Work at The University of Melbourne, and Lynda Campbell, Alun Jackson, Jane Miller and Janet Spink for helpful comments and discussions. Our families and friends have been valuable (and tolerant) companions in this journey, and we are very grateful to them. In particular, however, we wish to thank each other for an intellectually challenging, stimulating and above all enjoyable process of collaborative thinking and writing.

When in early 2003 we discussed with colleagues, students and social work practitioners our idea of placing the body at the centre of our thinking and practice, we were met with arguments and anxieties that this was a backward step a reductionist approach and an attempt to go into domains which were not social works concern. These anxieties and concerns are, in our view, manifestly misguided, but the voicing of such concerns does alert us to the importance of demonstrating just how and in what ways the human body does indeed lie at the centre of social work thinking and practice. It is our contention that only by placing the body at the centre will we achieve both a unity within social work theorizing and practice and ensure that its unique contribution to the human sciences and to human lives will be maintained.

Social workers work with bodies and are themselves bodies at work. Our bodies think and feel, move and talk, laugh and cry. Our bodies are creative: through them we can make things, destroy things and enhance or hinder their growth. Just as true is the fact that our bodies are vulnerable: they age, they sicken, are constrained and incarcerated. It is through our bodies that we communicate and on the basis of their appearance that we judge and are judged by others. Seen from one perspective, the limitations, capabilities and needs of the human body determine the nature of our entire social world.

Already it sounds like we are connecting, if not equating, intentionality, consciousness, identity and personhood with the body and, in fact, we mean to do so. It is on this basis that we argue that addressing social inequality and helping individuals

The Body in Social Work achieve a better quality of life require that the body not only be considered but be accorded a central place in social work theory and practice.

Placing the body at the centre of theorizing and practice is vital to social works espoused mission and purpose. At the forefront is recognition of social works practice interests. While social workers work across a variety of domains with a variety of situations in a variety of ways, bodies are central. In health and illness, child welfare, ageing, housing and community development, how the body is afflicted, treated, cared for, supported and nurtured is of primary concern. Social workers work with people who are excluded and marginalized, for example, with refugees, those who experience psychiatric and physical disability where stigma and bodily and emotional vulnerability are markers of human distress. Social workers work with existential problems concerning the nature of the self, personal identity, the quality of life, the meaning of life and of death. Very importantly, social workers are frequently in positions of authority over others, with influence to regulate and place others bodies under surveillance, especially those who are vulnerable or considered to pose risks to the wider society. As Tangenberg (2002) points out, social works tendency to separate the material body from the intellect colours the majority of social work theory and practice which assumes that the role of social workers is often to use intellect and skill to regulate the bodies and behaviours of those who are in some way out of control or overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of life.

Improving public health and developments in medical understanding and technology have seen a demographic shift to a longer-lived population at least in Western liberal democracies. This means that social workers will increasingly be working with the health and social issues of an ageing and more often disabled population. Clearly, where the frailty of the body and the economic and political issues this raises are more prominently on the agenda, social workers have an added impetus to develop their theoretical and practice knowledge and skills. This requires an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the body.

Contemporary developments in biology and neuroscience in particular require our attention. These are fields which are making rapid advances in understanding the workings of the human body with significant and profound implications for how we think about what bodies are, what they can do and what can be done to them. These technological achievements bring in their train not only key philosophical questions about how we are to understand our bodies but also profound ethical issues relating to what life itself is.

The body is present in social work theory but hard to find. It is assumed within the person-in-environment paradigm and is central to the model of the life course. Nevertheless, it is invisible taken for granted, unproblematized and untheorized for itself. The human body is certainly not at the theoretical centre, despite the fact that the person has traditionally been placed in the foreground of social work theorizing (Chambon 1999: 58).