Abolish Social Work (As We Know It)

By Dr. Craig Fortier

What happens when the structures that we come to depend upon in society begin to collapse? What does it mean to turn the focus inward on your profession in a time of political crisis? These are the challenging questions that motivate the contributors to the edited book Abolish Social Work (As We Know It), published by Between the Lines.  Co-edited by Dr. Craig Fortier, Associate Professor in Social Development Studies at Renison University College, Dr. Edward Hon-Sing Wong, Research Associate at SEIU Healthcare, and Dr. MJ Rwigema, Assistant Professor in Applied Health Sciences at Concordia University, the book emerges out of decades long experiences, relationships and collaborations between the editors and frontline social workers, social work educators, sex workers and sex work advocates, Indigenous knowledge keepers, harm reduction workers, community organizers, and those for whom social work has been an impediment to their lives.

Abolish Social Work (as we know it) is organized into two distinct parts that are meant to balance the tensions between critique and possibility, between care and carcerality, between professionalism and survival. In the first part (Abolition Social Work), the contributors speak to the contours, histories, theories, and practices of abolition within, against, and beyond social work as it exists today. Part two of the book, (Social Work Abolition),  grapples with the challenges and possibilities of trying to bring about the worlds we wish to see—including the real possibility that turning towards an abolitionist and decolonizing social work might mean transforming the social work profession beyond recognition. This section asks hard questions about the failures, missteps, and learnings that have emerged over the last few decades of dealing with global pandemics and natural disasters, tightening border controls, and rising fascism. It explores both the possibilities and risks of transforming social work beyond its current professional boundaries – and offers a caring and supportive hand in inviting current social workers, social work educators, and social work students in collectively imagining the discipline beyond its current confines.

Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) is now available wherever books are sold.