Project description:
“Rage Against the System” Protests and Demonstrations Against the Child Welfare Services
Protesting is a growing channel of political expression (Ciccia & Guzmán-Concha, 2019). In the last ten years, we have seen an increase in demonstrations and protests against child welfare services in Norway and Sweden.
Social work is increasingly characterized by individualization, bureaucratization and demands of efficiency and evidence within the institutions of the social welfare system (Henriksen et. al, 2023, p. 113). Also, social work education is concerned with clinical practice focused on social problems experienced by individuals, groups and families and the interests of the social welfare state (Asakura et. al, 2020). When faced with protests against the system in which they work, social workers have limited means to respond as they are seldom taught about collective protests by marginalized groups against social welfare services (Zaidi & Aaslund, 2021). Thus, the influence of social protest movements on social work and social workers’ understanding of collective action and their own practice is not sufficiently documented or studied (Noble, 2015; Aaslund & Chear, 2020). At the same time, there is limited research on protest groups and protest movements aimed at the child welfare services (Stang, 2018). Hence, the effects of such collective action on the target – child welfare services and the social workers employed there – represents a gap in our knowledge.
This project will draw upon qualitative data from interviews with social workers in child welfare services in Norway and Sweden, as well as fieldnotes from participatory observation as I seek to follow key figures in the protest movements for a period of time. Mixed methods is considered essential as I seek to answer the question: “How do social workers understand and relate to protests and demonstrations against their workplace, the child welfare services, and how do the protesters understand and explain their choice of these collective actions?”
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