BJSW Advance Access published online on April 15, 2008
British Journal of Social Work, doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcn037
The Present Finnish Formation of Child Welfare and History
Dr Mirja Satka is currently Academy Research Fellow at the Academy of Finland located at the University of Jyväskylä. She has previously worked as professor in social work at the University of Helsinki, and acts as a director of a research project, ‘A socio-legal study of the change in the institutional practices that regulate generational relations in child welfare’. Her research interests include theory and history of social work, child welfare and social work education. Dr Timo Harrikari completed his Ph.D. in Social Policy and works currently as Research Fellow at the Department of Social Policy Studies, University of Helsinki for the above mentioned research project. He is also acting as a child welfare expert member in two Finnish administrative courts. His research interests include young offenders, child protection, child welfare policy, control policy and probation work
Correspondence to Dr Mirja Satka, Academy Research Fellow, Department of Social Sciences, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Email: mirja.satka{at}helsinki.fi
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Abstract |
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The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the nature of Finnish child welfare as a strategy of social control. It applies Michel Foucault's ‘history of the present’ approach to illuminate what is hidden or taken for granted in the present practice and discourse. The article problematizes child welfare in the present and illuminates its current formations by recourse to the past. Since Finnish child welfare has developed in connection with the Anglo-American and Central European discourses of the field, the provided insights are also transferable to international contexts in the contemporary conditions of governance.
Keywords: a history of the present, child welfare formatiion, genealogy