Hacia una ciencia del trabajo social. Epistemologías, subalternidad y feminización

Belén Lorente-Molina; Natalia Luxardo

Send article

Towards a science of social work. Epistemologies, subalternity and feminization

Authors

Belén Lorente-Molina Universidad de Málaga http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4126-4091
Natalia Luxardo Universidad de Buenos Aires http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9304-0110

No. 61 (2018): March

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyse a long-standing challenge in the field of social work related to its historical struggle to be taken seriously as a scientific discipline. The paper identifies a tripartite conceptual framework to guide the discussion of the science of social work. The first part describes debates in contemporary social work about the nature of knowledge, considering that social work has experienced researchers who bring critically important perspectives to bear in national and international venues. The second part focuses on the social work’s subordinate academic status within the social sciences and its historical positioning as an applied rather than research-oriented discipline and the impacts relating its power and interdisciplinary asymmetric relations experienced in social work. Finally, the article raises questions about the anonymity of women in the profession’s history. In that sense, expertise in care, social help and service to the other, are feminized components of the socio-professional identity of social work and a crucial issue to consider in understanding the discipline’s standing among other social sciences. The article argues there is evidence of a large variety of positions within the history of social work concerning issues of scientific production within the field.

Keywords:

social work, science, epistemology, feminization, subalternity

Downloads

How to Cite

Lorente-Molina, B., & Luxardo, N. (2018). Towards a science of social work. Epistemologies, subalternity and feminization. Cinta De Moebio. Revista De Epistemología De Ciencias Sociales, (61), 95–109. Retrieved from https://adnz.uchile.cl/index.php/CDM/article/view/48583