Rural areas and social work: Reflection on research in German-speaking countries

Introduction

In social work, research findings obtained in urban areas have repeatedly been transferred unquestioningly to rural areas without considering the specific conditions of rural areas. Research in rural regions is often only seen as a difference to the city instead of researching and recognising these areas’ special features and characteristics.

In addition, many studies do not clearly define the terms ‘space’ and ‘rural areas’. This can lead to blind spots and stereotypes in research and often contribute to reproducing stigmatisation in rural areas (Kühn et al., 2023). The quantification of rural areas, usually with population or settlement density figures, is also often adopted without reflection. The complexity of rural areas, which are too diverse in their structure and reality of life to allow generalised statements to be made, is neglected. It is, therefore, essential to overcome the binary understanding of urban and rural, as the dominant urban perspective does not do justice to the entire reality of social work. The focus on urban problems is deeply rooted in the history of social work, both in research and practice, and has led to marginalised discourses (Rădăcină, 2022). The question arises about how the categories can be broken down to gain a more differentiated understanding. Consequently, region-specific research is required to consider the challenges of cultural and historical contexts and integrate transdisciplinary approaches from the natural, engineering and social sciences.

Scientific research on social work in rural areas

Being inadequate, poorly equipped or poorly networked is a common attribution of rural authorities (Brandstetter, 2022: 547). At the same time, the actors themselves attribute greater social cohesion to rural areas and refer to regional power and group relations. A widespread assumption about rural areas is that people in rural regions, in particular, who suffer from emigration and are at risk of being left behind economically, vote for radical right-wing parties. This is remarkable, as rural areas are becoming increasingly important because of the challenges of socio-ecological change. ¹ As production areas for food and energy, as recreational areas and places of biodiversity, resources in rural areas are becoming the focus of research and development. This is demonstrated not least by the European Policy Action Lab: Territorial Development for the Green Transition. Ageing, emigration, a shortage of skilled labour and gaps in supply are increasing the pressure on politics and the economy.

However, understanding rural areas only as problem or production areas falls short in the long term. Only precision in the respective context allows characterisation of rural regions that are not static. This realisation is crucial because if spatial orders are always understood in this sense as an expression of social/societal practice, they are not to be understood as fixed localisations but as potentially always changeable structures (Sandermann, 2020: 419). How a space is designed, how people live in it and which structures result from a historical design process, at the same time, the people and structures continue to shape these spaces. Social work and research into social problems and their solutions are the result and starting point for change. Research on social problems is still focused on rural areas from an external urban perspective.

Social work as an urban profession of transformation and social change

In social work research, the focus is placed on subjects and structures where social work occurs. However, in contrast to the Anglo-American context, research played a rather subordinate role in developing social work in the German-speaking context for a long time. The focus was on the development of practical professional training based on the theories of its most crucial reference disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, education and law (Hauss, 2011: 22). The professional practice was long characterised by a moral confrontation with the social question and normatively devaluing or marginalising discourses on neglect and re-education. Accordingly, these discourses were shaped by developments in social work schools or universities in the cities (Galle, 2018).

Even though individual professionals were already endeavouring to establish a scientific foundation for social work at the beginning of the 20th century, it was not established academically until the early 1960s and 1970s (Baier et al., 2014; Schulze et al., 2023). Within this development, a systematisation of research topics – concerning the German-speaking world – can be categorised into three main areas. First, the ‘internal’ view of professions and professionalisation research can be observed, which has received new impetus from current reappraisal research. A second dominant approach is user and addressee research. Finally, outcome- or evidence-based research has shaped the economic planning of social work between personal and political interests after 2000 (Baier et al., 2014). The research topics focus on urban challenges and problems. Social work in rural areas tends to be discussed as backward, for example in the discourse surrounding the reappraisal of the history of care homes (as research on professionalisation and from the user perspective). Rural areas are viewed in contrast to progress in the cities and represented by disciplinary education in large groups, in poor, violent rural foster families or monastic moral and re-education institutions (Keller et al., 2021). For theoretically sound social work, the three main research areas are valuable for a systematic look at methodology. The conditions under which the so-called ‘social problems’ arise and are defined are overlooked: How do tense relationships between subject and society arise in social spaces, and how do their typical manifestations (which are then considered typically rural or typically urban) come about?

This article’s thesis is that a social-theoretical derivation of how the term ‘rural space’ is conceptualised and justified is needed, as well as how we can transfer it from a social work perspective into a research design with field definition and question transformation. It is essential that research projects do not reproduce or reinforce spatially localised problematic developments and that the ‘social space’ as an object of research enables culturally sensitive knowledge (Kessl and Reutlinger, 2022).

To this end, we propose two possible methodological approaches: (1) theoretically rethinking the concept of space and (2) looking at the historical development of space through the family.

The definition of rural areas as fields within the social space

The challenge is to deconstruct central ideas about areas, spaces and their particular characteristics that precede general perception. The starting hypothesis is that space (especially physical space; Bourdieu, 1997) generally conceals social dynamics. Only an understanding of space based on social and epistemological theory, such as Bourdieu’s, can make visible why specific exploration and intervention strategies are required to deconstruct the spatial images described above into the supposedly ‘hopeless, empty periphery’. Bourdieu’s concept of social space is aimed at precisely those social structures of order (social superiority and subordination) that must be overcome in the action process. This is because the structure of social space always manifests itself in ‘territorial physical manifestations’ (Schroer, 2006: 82). In other words, physical space exists as a reality which, due to the necessity of positioning actors and appropriated things, also subjects social positioning to this lawfulness (positioning).

Consequently, social structures inscribe themselves into the physical world and create a naturalisation effect that makes social differences look like naturally existing differences. For example, the endowment of a physical space with a certain amount of capital (services, goods provided, available infrastructure) becomes a social variable in that the availability of scarce goods represents a measure of a ‘desired space’. Spaces in which capital is difficult or impossible to obtain are considered inferior to spaces in which the desired goods and symbolic capital are easily and quickly accessible. In particular, inhabited or appropriated space appears as a ‘spontaneous symbolisation of social space’ (Bourdieu, 1997: 160). However, since there is no space in a hierarchised society that is not hierarchised (e.g. real estate prices, symbolic capital, status-effective attributions) and this social order is concealed, symbolisation leads to a permanent inscription of social reality in the natural world.

Certain principles of differentiation and distribution are decoupled from the allocation of resources, and the resulting hierarchisation of municipalities at the expense of certain privileged conurbations forms a more or less naturally evolved order that is or must remain virtually unchangeable in terms of social, economic and educational policy. Collective strategies of targeted countermeasures at various levels of social reality thus remain unmentioned and invisible, so no capacity for action can be established.

The subject of the sections below is which symbolic capitals (sources) are available and how spatial images could/should be (deconstructively) changed. Subjective, lifeworld-oriented strategies for transforming the image of space, which also consider an intergenerational historical legacy or the created construction of space, are the subject of social work in operational practice, empirical research and further theory development.

Intergenerational aspect of rural areas in social work

How rural spaces shape individual agency is important for social work and adds a socio-spatial perspective to the discourse. A socio-historical-intergenerational perspective can be achieved in particular by examining the role of the family. In addition to viewing it as a social resource, it is also necessary to consider expectations and orientations. In families, actions are formed, shaped and passed on depending on the social history and social structure of the past, present and future (Schierbaum, 2017). One’s own remembered and experienced life history is closely interwoven with family history, and the individual life course is directly interwoven with family history and family relationship structures (Hille et al., 2022). Against this background, spatial concepts are processed – and passed on – as transgenerational educational processes. Rural and familial places should be viewed as framed, unconsciously (re-)produced and fundamentally negotiable (Kabuto, 2015). The experiences and their representation of individual family members, especially concerning rural areas and the design of agency, are dynamic and arouse continuous interest (Lowenstein et al., 2011). Shaped by traditional patterns of thought and interpretation, social spaces are confronted with changing models and expectations. Considering the structural differences between rural and non-rural spaces and the transgenerational perspective, it is essential to uncover contextual conditions that profoundly influence the subjects’ respective options for action. The investigation of resources, as well as horizons of experience and orientation, is crucial and is passed on across generations. At its core, the social framing of a rural area is closely linked to the family’s perception and meaning of the space. This shows the function of social work as an important actor that influences research. Social work can enable a reflexive thematisation of space, spatial image and spatial capital, which can be passed on intergenerationally and critically reflexively.

Reflecting on how to thematise rural space from an intergenerational perspective

The first step of systematised research programmes is to deconstruct the (virtually) self-evident social order using a theoretically and empirically tested approach. Therefore, if you want to enable change in the ‘spatial images’ mentioned above (rural-urban), if you want to bring about transformation, those construction achievements that subjects generally produce in the sense of appropriative action must be more or less ‘dissolved’. A survey based on classic, purely geographical perception parameters (proximity/distance, density, height, parametric relationships) or quasi-concrete living conditions (what would we have to change so that you would feel more comfortable in the room) would continue the underexposure of socially constructed (rural) space. If we consider the research directions taken up, at least a fourth research direction in social work has gained relevance: the participatory one. It may sound like an urban idea, but it is not if its premises are consistently implemented in practice.

A lack of training for social work specialists in rural regions exacerbates the challenges between urban and rural areas. These challenges go beyond providing services and mobility and fundamentally require understanding universal values and particular interests. A lack of support for specific, participative and interdisciplinary research in rural areas leads to a failure to recognise the structural deficits in the area.

People, in particular, need to be involved in the change processes rather than just being informed about investments or trained to accept change. People must be allowed to help shape developments in their living environments and make their own decisions. There is a need for region-specific participatory research that considers the cultural and historical contexts of regional challenges and integrates transdisciplinary approaches from the natural sciences, engineering and social sciences. As the social contexts in rural areas are very different, research must also be differentiated. One possibility here would involve a theoretically driven concept of social space, families and their intergenerationality in rural areas as a participatory process. Taking existing symbolic capital in rural regions into account, as well as the targeted promotion of capital identified as missing or insufficient, is considered to be one of the critical challenges of the future.

It is important not to reinforce inequalities with empirical research. What is needed is differentiated, triangulating and spatially sensitive research and empirical penetration of those parameters that identify rural areas as diversely evolved, socio-culturally idiosyncratic structures without categorising them. Social work departments in regional universities can take on important critical and contemporary tasks in knowledge networks here.