The Emotional Politics of Social Work and Child Protection

For several decades, social work and child protection systems have been subject to accelerating cycles of crisis and reform, with each crisis involving intense media and political scrutiny. In understanding the nature and causes of this cycle, little attention has been paid to the importance of collective emotions. Using a range of cases from the UK, and also considering cases from the Netherlands, the US and New Zealand, this book introduces the concept of emotional politics. It shows how collective emotions, such as anger, shame, fear and disgust, are central to constructions of risk and blame, and are generated and reflected by official documents, politicians and the media. The book considers strategies for challenging these 'emotional politics', including identifying models for a more politically engaged stance for the social work profession.|For several decades, social work and child protection systems have been subject to accelerating cycles of crisis and reform, with each crisis involving intense media and political scrutiny. In understanding the nature and causes of this cycle, little attention has been paid to the importance of collective emotions. Using a range of cases from the UK, and also considering cases from the Netherlands, the US and New Zealand, this book introduces the concept of emotional politics. It shows how collective emotions, such as anger, shame, fear and disgust, are central to constructions of risk and blame, and are generated and reflected by official documents, politicians and the media. The book considers strategies for challenging these 'emotional politics', including identifying models for a more politically engaged stance for the social work profession. THE EMOTIONAL POLITICS OF SOCIAL WORK AND CHILD PROTECTION Contents Notes on the author Acknowledgements 1. Introducing emotional politics Introduction Background and context The politics of social work and child protection How emotions are political How politics is emotional The emotional politics of the news Risk and emotion in practice and politics The chapters 2. ‘Heads must roll’? The politics of national anger and the press Introduction ‘A ghastly affected intimacy’: the power of the press in the politics–media–politics cycle The alchemy of emotional politics: how sadness becomes anger When wounded feelings become public consciousness ‘The power of your feeling is clear’: the nation as the subject of feeling Three fathers and a shameless woman Conclusion 3. Hidden in plain sight: poverty and the politics of disgust Introduction Social work, the underclass and moral regulation of the dangerous Other ‘Glimpses of an earthly hell’ ‘Tick-box’ social work, common sense and the invisibility of suffering A mother’s instinct, transgression and the impulse to rescue Conclusion 4. From crisis to reform: the emotional politics of child rescue and commemoration Introduction A ‘sad army of little children’: collective memory and the politics of false hope The emotional politics of child rescue through reform The emotional politics of interest representation Conclusion 5. Risk, respectability and the emotional politics of class Constituting respectable identities: the emotional politics of disgust revisited The responsible ‘us’ versus the incapable ‘them’: social work, moral regulation and the middle class Moral regulation and the ‘crisis’ of middle-class parenting The myth of the Cleveland affair and the politician as envoy of fear Conclusion 6. The emotionality of official documents: the serious case review as an active text Introduction Social work as documented practice and the active text Serious case reviews: their intended function and proposals for reform Serious case reviews in the politics–media–politics cycle Activating ‘new’ authoritative practice and moral regulation What might have been: the hindsight fallacy and counterfactual emotions Conclusion 7. Comparative perspectives: cultures of difference and convergence Introduction Complexity and convergence across child welfare systems Australasia (focusing on Australia and New Zealand): colonial discourse and mechanisms of blame The Netherlands: from interventions ‘as light as possible’ to ‘as heavy as needed’ Sweden’s two ghosts that haunt the system The US – New York City and the rollercoaster of child welfare Conclusion 8. Towards a new emotional politics of social work and child protection Introduction The main arguments of the book Social suffering and the politics of compassion: the public institutional role of social work Mind the gaps Social work and the media Social work, parents and children: the emotional politics of ‘authority’ and trust Social work and the political sphere: towards a politics of uncertainty and engagement Social work, neoliberalism and the politics of public participation Conclusion Appendix. Using qualitative document analysis techniques to analyse media and political accounts Analysing documents and media texts Identifying relevant documents Technical aspects of the data analysis References Index