© British Association of Social Workers
Community Work, Social Work: Green and Postmodern?
Mary Lane is a senior lecturer in the Department of Social Work, Social Policy and Sociology at the University of Sydney. Trained as a social worker, her practice included eight years as a community worker in new housing estates on the fringes of Sydney and five years as community work consultant to a community development organization in Fairfield, NSW— ‘the heart of multicultural Australia’. Current research and teaching interests are community development, peace and conflict studies, postmodernism and green political theory
Correspondence to Mary Lane, Department of Social Work, Social Policy and Sociology, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Summary
Opening with a story about community work, this paper explores developments and challenges in social and political theory and the implications for social work, particularly for collective practices. Feminism, postmodernism and green political theory are of particular interest. The paper argues for an interpretive approach to practice which emphasizes the local and specific, yet aspires to broader political action in the pursuit of social and ecocentric justice. Feminism has much to contribute to this exercise, challenging, as it does, a modern/postmodern divide. The emerging discourse of ecofeminism offers a synthesis of social and ecocentric purposes and values as a basis for tackling inequalities, whilst postmodern feminists enlighten our understanding of difference and encourage us to renounce certainty and last proofs.