Abstract
Green Social Work represents a big new step on the long but narrow path of discussions on environment issues in social work, which has developed in different languages and with different concepts in the global social work community. Be it about ecological social work, eco-social approach or sustainability, the debates reflecting upon ecological crisis in social work are now informed by new arguments and perspectives.
The truly valuable new contribution of Dominelli’s book is her systematic discussion of the consequences of ecological crises for people today, underlining the dimension of justice, especially for vulnerable people, which makes the issue so relevant for social work. This alone is a huge endeavour, since her analysis includes a number of the most urgent dimensions of ecological crises from the perspective of social work. Dominelli discusses industrialization and urbanization, industrial pollution, climate change and energy issues, environmental crises that cause migration, natural disasters, scarcity of natural resources and issues of indigenous people. She analyses what these disasters mean for people and gives practical examples what social workers interventions can be in each case to work towards environmental justice. Covering such a large spectrum of topics in a single book means that the analysis is limited in its depth and theoretical substance. But the author’s aim is rather to provide an overview and to raise general awareness about the connection between social work and ecological risks, as well as to encourage taking action. The second novelty of this book is that it clarifies the global dimensions of ecological crises, and underlines especially the situation of indigenous people and the Global South. While reflecting on the role of social workers in ecological issues, Dominelli actually integrates green social work with the traditions of radical and anti-oppressive social work and returns the political into social work. The neoliberal model of global capitalism is challenged by the demand for environmental justice. Consequently, Dominelli introduces a kind of action plan for social workers to realize their role and to become active in each issue or crisis. Because case studies from around the world are included, the book has elements of a program handbook that incorporates every level – from the global to the local – and provides a detailed agenda for actions. As a result of this journey, the book seems to achieve its goal: a broader holistic understanding of global ecological disasters and their impacts on social work, offering guidelines what a social worker can do in environmental issues.
This huge achievement also embeds some open issues and problems of the book. In my opinion, the main problem concerns the role of social workers. One could positively interpret that the book radically challenges the mainstream understanding of the profession. At the very beginning of the book, the author analyses the principal question underpinning the function of social work in a society. The question is rooted in the discrepancy between social work as a community-oriented movement with people and as a modern profession providing individualizing case-work detached from structures and the environment. Although the dominant Western model of social work is criticized and indigenous social work approaches are acknowledged in the book, the gap between these models is not taken into account when giving advice about what social workers should do. The author’s suggestions presume an autonomous and self-organized profession, which can fight against ecological injustice locally and worldwide. In many countries, however, social workers themselves are part of, and dependent on, the unsustainable neoliberal industrial model and its power structures. Hence the program of green social as such is far from the common expectations of the employers and clients of social workers. But knowing this does not make the points of Dominelli’s book less relevant. Unfortunately, she is right. If social work takes its global agenda and professional role seriously, it cannot remain separated from the issues of environmental justice, and many social workers around the globe are already engaged in these issues. This book opens – but does not completely answer – the existential question of how social workers who are paid to work in public or private services in the current economic model can change into mobilizing people towards the collective problem-solving of environmental conflicts and economic injustice.
Green Social Work is an essential book, and not only for those scholars and practitioners who are interested in global and environmental issues. In fact, it offers – even controversial – material for the debate on the core function of social work as a science, profession and movement in the era of global ecological crisis and economic conflicts.