Social Work

Social work research is inherently normative and as such the assumptions about social problems in social work research should be open to scrutiny and contestation. But although researchers often face tussles and huge contradictions, they rarely articulate them. In this article, we report on a small research project in which a collective of social work researchers in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium) tried to think critically through some of the questions and complexities they were confronted with in social work research, more specifically in research on poverty. Our research aim implied that we tried to discuss the choices that were made during a diversity of research projects, including making explicit the grounds on which this happened. We learned that the choices made, although they seem to be very obvious ones, often remained implicit during the different research processes. We conclude that social work research requires that researchers attempt to realize a practice of transparency. The pursuit of such a practice of transparency refers to the importance of the creation of reflexive space in research communities to collectively embrace and discuss the complexities of social work research.

ANTWERPEN De cliëntgegevens van de drie Antwerpse Centra Algemeen Welzijnswerk (CAW) tonen het grote aantal hulpvragen van mensen met een andere etnische afkomst aan. In 2005 was één op de drie van de cliënten van de Antwerpse CAW’s van niet-Belgische origine. Anno 2009 was dat aantal opgelopen tot vier op de tien begeleide cliënten. Deze cliënten waren afkomstig uit 105 verschillende landen. Cliënten van Marokkaanse herkomst vormden de grootste groep. Andere belangrijke groepen zijn van zwart-Afrikaanse, Turkse en Afghaanse origine (Van Robaeys & Driessens, 2011). Ook in het OCMW Antwerpen gaat de verkleuring van het cliëntenbestand snel. De nationaliteitscijfers, die slechts een deel van de herkomst van burgers onthullen, tonen dat in 2009 meer dan de helft van de steuntrekkers in Antwerpen niet de Belgische nationaliteit had. In bepaalde wijken lag het aandeel Belgen nog lager: in het sociaal centrum Seefhoek waren nog 30% van de cliënten ‘Belg’. 93 andere nationaliteiten zochten...

In Belgium, there are about a hundred associations where poor persons meet for the purpose of influencing policymaking. At the same time, various policy instruments have been created in Belgium and Flanders to allow the poor to participate in poverty policy. Examples that come to mind are the “Service for the fight against poverty, insecurity and social exclusion”, the approval of the Poverty Decree and hence the structural recognition of so-called “Organisations in which the poor speak out”. Nevertheless, in theory, a ‘powerless’ and deprived group is not in an ideal position to get organised and exert influence.