Abstract
Social work research, practice, and education have become increasingly constrained by the braided influences of neoliberalism, professionalization, and criminalization. Using concrete practice examples, this chapter proposes that principles of feminist research rooted in understandings of power as everywhere, dynamic, historic, and structural offer a potential interruption to these macro influences on social work practice. Through their contributions to knowledge production, education, and practice, we hold that tenets of feminist research open a new politic for social work, in which social work scholars, practitioners, and educators might interrupt dominant paradigms in the field and open space for collaborative action and a new social work future. Drawing on the unexpected global upheaval (from 2020) we argue that during uncertainty feminist principles offer social work research opportunities for building knowledge in the pursuit of a politic of accountability.
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Harrell, S., Anderson-Nathe, B., Wahab, S., Gringeri, C. (2022). Feminist Research and Practice: Reorienting a Politic for Social Work. In: Cocker, C., Hafford-Letchfield, T. (eds) Rethinking Feminist Theories for Social Work Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94241-0_4
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