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Editorial - SciELO · Editorial Social Work in Latin America: a review of the challenges and opportunities ... As Nicolás Casullo affirmed, we remain “with a critical vigil, alert

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Page 1: Editorial - SciELO · Editorial Social Work in Latin America: a review of the challenges and opportunities ... As Nicolás Casullo affirmed, we remain “with a critical vigil, alert

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Social Work in Latin America: a review of the challenges and opportunities

KAKAKAKAKATÁLTÁLTÁLTÁLTÁLYSIS vYSIS vYSIS vYSIS vYSIS v. 9 n. 2 jul./dez. 2006 Florianópolis SC 139-140. 9 n. 2 jul./dez. 2006 Florianópolis SC 139-140. 9 n. 2 jul./dez. 2006 Florianópolis SC 139-140. 9 n. 2 jul./dez. 2006 Florianópolis SC 139-140. 9 n. 2 jul./dez. 2006 Florianópolis SC 139-140

If we review the issues that have convoked the variousprofessional events throughout Latin America in recentyears, we find - in one form or another - a discussion of theethical-political dimension of Social Work from a criticalperspective. This is a realization that the professional fieldis currently undergoing a collective change, which is openingnew paths, based on accumulated capital and in relation tothe social-political context in which we live. We continue toreflect upon Social Work in relation to the social conditionsand its capacity to respond to them. As Nicolás Casulloaffirmed, we remain “with a critical vigil, alert likequestioning theories before the devastating spirit of thetime”. This critical vigil recurs in the pages of this edition.As expressed by one of the articles, our region isexperiencing a historic moment, with a strong Latin Americanbent, as has not been seen for many decades. Latin Americais being ridden by an attempt to break with the immediatelypreceding times and the destiny is not at all assured a priori.But the intent exists, with a strength that grants theresurgence of political and social forces that are expressedthrough the politicization of needs. As could not be otherwise,this process is reflected in our debates, in our questioningand in our production.

Concerning the latter, we know that at various momentsof history, the hegemonic discoursivity of Social Work sufferedimbalances in its positions, at times in favor of more structuralanalyses, at other times in favor of problems specific to thefield. But an understanding of the macro-problem mustnecessarily be accompanied by an analysis of the professionalfield in strict terms. The field is newly interpellated anddemands restructurings and a renewed effort to reconsiderthe insertion of Social Work in the social relations that definethe current scenario, as well as the impact of the currentsocial transformation at the heart of the profession, professionaltraining and the production of knowledge.

One positive quality found in some of the articlespresented here is a scrupulous theoretically based articulationbetween the text and the context of our profession, whichplaces on the agenda for debate important questions thatinclude: the relationship between Social Work anddemocracy, Social Policies and their contradictory yetindispensable character as an area for dispute in the field ofaccess to social wealth, a recovery of central categories –such as dependency – for the self-understanding of the LatinAmerican situation and thus, the production of knowledge,professional training and the history of the profession. All

of these themes are substantive and not accessory, for tworeasons. First, because they allow establishing convergencesbetween the modifications in the field of the distributivestruggle at the social and governmental level and of SocialWork. Second, because they mark the possibilities andlimitations of the consequences and direction of ourprofessional activity.

It appears that new opportunities are arising. In fact,the central issue that articulates this publication indicatesthis, by proposing a discussion about Social Work in LatinAmerica: review, challenges and opportunities. This issuehas a precedent in a very important publication fromCELATS that coincidently had the name Trabajo Socialen América Latina. Balance y perspectivas [Social Workin Latin America. A Review and Perspective], published1982, a time in which this extraordinary professionalmovement called “Reconceptualization”, demanded arevision, at the same time that our societies entered thedramatic spotlight of neoliberal reconstruction. It thusappears that when we identify times of review andchallenge, we can suppose that we are undergoing a timeof inflection and that it is necessary to stop, reflect andmake proposals. I believe that this new challengingmovement allows the rebirth of certain utopias. A utopiathat, as Feyerabend said, is not any pipe-dream but apossibility to evaluate in the fairest possible terms both themisfortunes and the opportunities of this transformativemoment. It is thus a utopia that denies the escapism ofidealistic proposals, but that is capable of simultaneouslyreaching this prudent optimism that helps us to identify thetasks of this moment, at the heart of the institutions inwhich our work is inscribed - that is the academic, laborunion and professional institutions.

The various authors that occupy these pages - whoencompass seven countries and express different anddivergent theoretical perspectives – present problems thatstem from solid cores of professional labor and establishsolid theoretical bases. They do so with a conviction, that isnot fundamentalist, but well founded, and with utopias, notPromethean but reasonable, from a reason that is notprescriptive but questioning, and thus capable of placingnew issues on the agenda for collective debates. All of thethemes presented are controversial and allow diverse pointsof view. The positions of the authors present a range oftrends, but all of them cast us to a more complex approachto Social Work that is immersed in the complex web that

Page 2: Editorial - SciELO · Editorial Social Work in Latin America: a review of the challenges and opportunities ... As Nicolás Casullo affirmed, we remain “with a critical vigil, alert

KAKAKAKAKATÁLTÁLTÁLTÁLTÁLYSIS vYSIS vYSIS vYSIS vYSIS v. 9 n. 2 jul./dez. 2006 Florianópolis SC 139-140. 9 n. 2 jul./dez. 2006 Florianópolis SC 139-140. 9 n. 2 jul./dez. 2006 Florianópolis SC 139-140. 9 n. 2 jul./dez. 2006 Florianópolis SC 139-140. 9 n. 2 jul./dez. 2006 Florianópolis SC 139-140

Nora AquínNora AquínNora AquínNora AquínNora Aquín1 40140140140140

develops in the inter-relations between State, Market andSociety. For this reason, they shed light on the discussionabout the perspectives and challenges of Social Work.

In relation to these challenges and perspectives, Iunderstand – and this issue presents sufficient reasons todo so – that our position in support of the expansion anddemandability of social rights and their democraticadministration continues to be valid. This represents theinteriorization in the professional field of the currentdemands of the various social and political actors. Thedemandability and justiciability of social and economic rightsis a social, political, cultural and legal process, and for thisreason is so compelling to us as a professional category.The form and the degree to which a State complies withits obligations in terms of economic and social rights shouldinvolve the active and organized participation of civilsociety, and this participation is constitutive of citizenship.

A strategy of demandability requires a social platform,the sustainability of actors, of organizations, of socialsubjects who recognize themselves as subjects of rights,and as such have the capital necessary to organize andmobilize themselves, and demand their complete realization.To do so, an important change in any strategy fordemandability of rights would certainly involve the inversionthat we strive for in the recomposition of the social fabricand also in the use of the potential nuclei of demandabilityof the laws, the exploitation of the existing legal shortfalls,of the administrative acts that violate rights and of theantecedents in our own and other countries, which provideus an immense field of investigation.

At the beginning we mentioned that we maintain acritical vigal. This is what critical work is composed of.Critical work which is not limited, in my understanding, toa ethical-political project, but that intends to trigger anintellectual project. Thus, it is a criticism that encompassestheory, methodology, ethics and politics. It is a criticismthat is not romantic, and is thus not nostalgic for asupposedly satisfactory past. It is critical work that helpsus to free ourselves from immediacy, from discontent, fromimpossibility and which illuminates “what is left to be done”and allows us to recognize the distinct social moments asnecessary but not eternal. This stimulates us to study reality,while warning of its transformative trends – and not onlydreaming of what we want.

The pages of this issue steer us in this direction and asa whole contribute to reaffirm the meaning of our work,which is nothing else but to reduce the asymmetries throughthe construction of justice.

Nora AquínSecretary of Research and Graduate Program

School of Social WorkUniversidad Nacional de Cordoba