Response: Reviewing the Coming Crisis in Social Work

I wish to congratulate Longhofer and Floersch for outlining a very thoughtful, erudite contribution to:

the advancement of a critical realist sociology of social work to combat an argued crisis in knowledge;

the critique of positivism as applied to social work research;

modern day social work practice; and

the nature of reflexivity in social work research to address a phenomenological gap between theory and practice.

I would reiterate wholeheartedly their sentiment that “social work is interested in how and why things matter to people . . . and that social work is interested in the causes of human suffering.” However, I would like to add another salient dimension affecting the crisis and the nature of human suffering, namely the impact of neoliberalism, not only on the social world to which social work responds, but also the generation of knowledge within the social work academy. If social work is interested in human suffering, then it needs to look no further than the growing inequalities in societies and how this leads to worse outcomes for the less well-off but also those in higher income brackets (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). Although Longhofer and Floersch make a number of short references to the effects of neoliberalism in their article, it requires a much greater emphasis as it is the governing world order. Any critical realist project located in the social world must therefore take account, first and foremost, of how the economic policies of our time affect institutional, cultural, interactional, and human domains of experience. Social class is as salient now as it was when Marx wrote his famous manifesto along with Engels. This is not to fall prey to downward conflation (reducing social life to economism) but to acknowledge the primacy of this order. Neoliberalism promotes entrepreneurship, competition, self-interest, individualism, decentralization and deregualtion, individual empowerment, the merits of the self-regulating market, cost–benefit analyses, and other efficiency calcualtions oriented toward the creation of surpluses and privatization. In relation to human welfare, it has given rise to the McDonaldization of risk-aversive practices and services. The global economic crisis and the failure of accounting-led governance systems are testimonies to the considerable contradictions within this form of economic organization. Neoliberalism is the “hottest game in town” but not the only one. Any attempt to take emancipatory social work practice seriously has to start with an understanding of the game’s rules and deep structures.

Having said this, let me turn now to the early part of the article where the crisis in social work research was highlighted. I want to reframe the concern somewhat with my earlier comments in mind. Within the higher education academy, academics are being harnessed to the interests of big business on an unprecedented scale. The so-called knowledge economy is transforming scholarly institutions into profit centers earning foreign exchange to bolster flagging, university budgets. There is evidence that the neoliberal turn is in some way associated with the restoration or reconstruction of economic, power elites. This context is greatly shaping what is researched, how it is researched, how the research is funded, and whether the research is recognized. My colleagues rightly point to the crisis in social work research, its paradigm wars, and debates over its scientific standing, but surely these debates have been occluded by the neoliberal knowledge economy and the manner in which knowledge is being harnessed to profit. This is the commodification of knowledge which, in the language of critical realism, acts as a central, underpinning mechanism operating in the real world of unseen forces that nevertheless have discernable effects. I would ask “To what extent are the well-worn paradigm wars in social work research an ideological ruse diverting focus from the fact that the role of the social work academic has been proletarianized?”

Longhofer and Floersch very helpfully explain the core tenets of critical realism—a doctrine noted for its linguistic opaqueness. I congratulate them on their explanation of complex concepts such as causation, the different domains of experience, the role of contingency and necessity, and so on. My argument is that critical realism, as an underlaboring schematic, requires substantive sociological flesh, particularly if it is to examine social relations and selfhood under neoliberalism. However, they only wetted my appetite in this regard with reference to Bauman’s “liquid modernity” thesis, among other very interesting theoretical hors d’oeuvres. Thus, Bourdieu’s ideas on “habitus” present a much needed perspective on constraint and enablement but fail to develop a coherent picture of human agency. For me, critical realism needs to align with a major theoretical school that examines processes at the causal level of reality in neoliberal society and which leads to human emancipation. I contend that one of the primary contenders for this honor is critical social theory as rendered by the Frankfurt school—both its antecedent thinkers, very early progenitors, second-wave and contemporary, third-wave theorists. Within this rich and polymathic corpus of work, ideas (explored deftly by Longhofer and Floersch) on selfhood and agency, human psychology, materiality, reflexivity, and human practice abound. Here psychology (from the Freudian School), social anthropology, economics, cultural studies, social psychology, and sociology align to present a rich interdisciplinary reservoir of ideas to inform research and practice in emancipatory social work. Marcuse’s (1964) celebrated work on One Dimensional Man, for instance, reveals an important essence relating to human selfhood under neoliberalism where the fixation with commodity is revealed with excoriating insight.

Marx was a critical realist and critical social theorist long before the offical launch of these movements by the founding thinkers. For Mark and other Frankfurt School thinkers, such as Axel Honneth, our social nature is anchored in our needs and the bodily, coporeal realm (Longhofer and Floersch have already alluded to the embodied nature of human experience). We are able to survive and thrive as a consequence of our social natures. Human subjects are concrete actors who are embodied and survive through social interaction. Furthermore, it is out of this social nexus that social emancipation comes. Drawing from Fueurbach and the early anthropological ideas within Marx, praxis (another theme taken up by these authors) is intersubjective. Our intersubjectivity, according to Feurbach, is grounded in embodied, gendered subjects. Akin to Heidegger, actors are concrete beings in the world. This challenges the Cartesian split between body and mind. For Feuerbach, the individual is a sensuous being who opens up to the world. Allied to this, for Marx, our identity is shaped by our praxis, our work, our role, and our labor. A critical psychology can be developed with the Marxist analysis of the division of intellectual and manual labor that still has a central relevance to antioppressive research and practice in social work.

Moreover, the centraliity of language, as it relates to discursive practice, can be understood through Habermas’ seminal contribution where distorted forms of speech are linked to the development of capitalist society. In addition, reflexive practice, or reflexivity more generally, must not only be monological but, if it is to be truly emancipatory, fundamentally communicational as well (as Habermas, perhaps contra Archer, exhorts) and grounded in democratic ethics. Axel Honneth’s psychological work on the need for recognition for optimal identity formation has continuing relevance for social work research on human relationships. Recognition might be characterized, here, as a grounding psychological mechanism that is essential across cultural boundaries. Yes, practice is discursive, visual, embodied, and liquid, but it is also fundamentally relational and oriented toward labor as Marx, Habermas, and Honneth argue.

What is my main message to Longhofer and Floersch? I am saying that critical realist research and practice in social work needs sociological insights from a major established school of thought that can adequately provide theoretical ideas, on an interdisciplinary basis, going beneath the surface to examine ontological depth, particularly the economic, material domain. Marx’s ideas on base and superstructure continue to have relevance in this context. To reiterate the point, we must start with the governing economic context—neoliberalism—and understand how it shapes human subjectivity and social work practice. I contend that critical social theory, in the work of Marx, Feuerbach, Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Habermas, and Honneth, has a continuing relevance to understanding modern life under neoliberalism but also the emancipatory potential within human relations. The in-depth understanding of human life provided by this school of thought is in marked contrast with theories which reduce social life to social constructions and discourse, which Longhofer and Floersch have ably critiqued. They reference Bourdieu but in my view he is still trapped within the limitations of French structuralism and is thus unable to offer a viable theoretical alternative for any critical realist project in social work research.

A final observation, what surprised me was the limited attention to research method in my colleagues’ article. Critical realism draws on retroduction but also induction, deduction, and abduction (Danermark, Ekstrom, Jakobsen, & Karlsson, 2002). What is vital in critical realist social work research is methodoligical pluralism and intensive and extensive research design—given the complex social world, its underpinning mechanisms, open and closed systems, and the effects of human agency. There is no reason why it should jettison empirical research, systematic reviews, regression analysis, or the randomized-controlled trial (RCT), not that Longhofer and Floersch are saying this by any means. The logic of the RCT is quite unassailable. Methodological pluralism and pragmatism must supercede puritanical orthodoxy. Mixed methods must be the order of the day as long as the researcher can find a way of theorizing about the deep, causal level of reality, using theoretical lenses that enable hypothetical models to be formed. If we draw on a rich theoretical framework to support critical realism as an underlaboring tool, and commit to an equally rich and varied method, then the phenomenological gap that my colleagues presciently identify begins to recede, even marginally as the transitive and intranstive worlds become more synonymous and the light in Plato’s cave more illuminating. Longhofer and Floersch have made a significant contribution to this project and are to be amply congratulated on their scholarship.