Abstract
Invitation to contribute to a special issue on
“Ethnography—Practice
and
Theory in Social Work Research”
You are invited to submit a paper to Qualitative Social Work: Research and Practice for a special issue on “Ethnography—Practice and Theory in Social Work Research”.
For ontological and epistemological reasons, ethnography is a research methodology that has proven to be especially important to social work. Regarding ontology, our clients, communities, and organizations exist in real-time and in open systems where social worker and client must face each other and therefore, much of what matters to our constitutents is how we come to know them in their natural settings. By examining social work practice in “real world” settings, ethnographic methods can produce empirically and theoretically rich studies of complex social problems, shed light on contradictions in social policy, attend to change across multiple scales of human action, and assist in the process of translating between research and practice. Social work occupies the practical, everyday spaces of lived experience where clients and social workers go about their daily lives, engage in continual back-and-forth interactions, communicate verbally and nonverbally, struggle to make sense of their worlds, and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail at understanding and changing. Moreover, the fluid, non-linear relationship between social workers and their constituents often produces practice-to-theory and theory-to-practice puzzles, challenges, and impasses. Such challenges are frequently heightened or diminished by forces (e.g. political, ideological, religious, cultural, and disciplinary) exogenous to theory itself, or may also be produced by real limitations that are specific to material conditions(e.g. policy environments, spatial constraints, funding sources, competing paradigms). Thus, we are seeking manuscripts that use ethnography to understand, explain, or describe the complex relationships between social workers and their constituents with a focus upon the everyday lived experience of ‘doing’ social work. We are interested in manuscripts from experienced researchers and those who are just beginning their research careers. It is important that an article reflect the aims of the journal (outlined in the information for contributors section of the journal) and the commitment to providing a forum for those interested in qualitative research and evaluation. Reviews of book-length enthographies are also welcome. Articles should be no longer than 7000 words and in accordance with the guidelines and submission requirements for articles in Qualitative Social Work and should be submitted at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/qsw. Please refer to the journal guidelines and submission requirements for these articles (http://qsw.sagepub.com). The usual review process will apply.
The guest editors of this special issue are: Jerry Floersch, Jeffrey Longhofer, and Jacob Suskewicz, Rutgers University, School of Social Work.
Enquiries about this special issue can be directed to the guest editors or the journal editors.
The journal is planned for publication early in 2014. Please advise Jerry Floersch, Jeffrey Longhofer, or Jacob Suskewicz if you intend submitting an article or a book review. All contributions should be uploaded to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/qsw