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Globalisation, Community Development and Empowerment
Mid Sweden University, Faculty of Human Sciences, Department of Social Work, Östersund, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0810-2848
2014 (English)Conference paper, Poster (with or without abstract) (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

In a time of growing demand for and debate on sustainable development, which also influences the field of social work, development is often related to various empowerment-oriented and neoliberal investment related activities for the development of ‘non-developed’ countries. This risks ignoring the structural mechanisms, which reproduce global inequalities and non-sustainability. This poster critically examines the dilemmas linked to a neoliberal and linear global development agenda for combating poverty and global problems declared by international organs, such as the UN and the EU, which also influences the practices of social work. The following questions are guiding the study: ‘Which are the core arguments behind the recent UN and EU reports concerning sustainable development for empowering local communities? ‘How do individuals and families from local communities evaluate the effects of such projects and programs for their life conditions? What is the role of social work in combating shortcomings of a linear development agenda and the development of new sustainable alternatives? The study is based on analysis of official UN and EU documents guiding sustainable development and interviews with individuals with experiences of development projects and programs in local communities in Southern India and in a few West African countries. The results of the study show that the discourse of ‘sustainable development’ in the recent UN report and EU documents are very much guided by a neoliberal and West-centric understanding of global development and empowerment, which deteriorate the living conditions of people living in non-Western local communities. It is argued that social work should consider the dilemmas and problems engaged in the established discourse of‘sustainable development’ and find alternative programs beyond the West-centric development agenda. This requires further development of ‘the global agenda for social work’ in order to address the mechanisms behind the reproduction of inequalities in the name of development.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2014.
National Category
Social Work
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-72292OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-72292DiVA, id: diva2:1286951
Conference
Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education, and Social Development, Melbourne, Australia, July 9-12, 2014
Available from: 2019-02-08 Created: 2019-02-08 Last updated: 2019-03-27Bibliographically approved

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Jönsson, Jessica H.

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf