Ultimate concerns and human rights : how can practice sensitive to spirituality and religion expand and sharpen social work capacity to challenge social injustice?

Fran Gale, Michael Dudley

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Spirituality and religion are among the very last human rights to be implemented in social work. However, there is a difference between a right in the Conventions and Codes of Ethics and grounding that right in social work praxis. Understood as a human right possessed by individuals, spirituality and religion are, nonetheless, increasingly esteemed as important aspects of culturally competent social work practice i.e. that social workers are cognizant of diverse ethnic groups’ religious affiliations and practice. Consequently, an intent to progress and deepen anti-oppressive and anti-racist practice is a key motivation for including spirituality and religion in social work literature and practice. Social work is now facing unprecedented challenges in a postsecular (Habermas 2006), globalised world, where the impact of globalisation on those individuals, groups and communities who are most disadvantaged and vulnerable leaves social work to pick up the pieces (Dominelli 2010). This chapter argues that social work practice that is alive to spirituality and religion can construct a critical practice which expands its capacity to galvanise social justice. Spirituality and religion, through their potential to bring together ‘situated’ contextual knowledge of people’s ‘glocal’ needs, ultimate concerns, oppression and forms of resistance, can be a significant catalyst in social work practice for inspiring and motivating social justice. Nevertheless, the claim that religion and spirituality can challenge oppression and disadvantage arising from social processes including globalisation remains at the level of the romantic unless the ‘knowledge from the margins’, which this chapter argues they can deliver, has a conduit for practice.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Routledge Handbook of Religion, Spirituality and Social Work
EditorsBeth R. Crisp
Place of PublicationU.K.
PublisherRoutledge
Pages347-357
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)9781315679853
ISBN (Print)9781138931220
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Keywords

  • religion
  • social justice
  • social service
  • spirituality

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