(Routledge Advances in Social Work) 1st Edition
by Sonia M. Tascón (Author)
How are we to understand how the
dominance of visual images and representations in late modernity affects
Social Work practice, research and education? Social workers are
increasingly using still and moving images to illustrate their work, to
create new knowledge, and to further specific groups’ interests. As a
profession in which communication is central, visual practices are
becoming ever more significant as they seek to carry out their work
with, and for, the marginalised and disenfranchised.
It is time
for the profession to gain more critical, analytical, and practical
knowledge of visual culture and communication, in order to use and
create images in accordance with its central principle of social
justice. That requires an understanding of them beyond representation.
As important as this is, it is also where the profession’s scholarly
work in this area has remained and halted, and thus understanding of the
work of images in our practices is limited. In order to more fully
understand images and their effects – both ideologically and
experientially – social workers need to bring to bear other areas of
study such as reception studies, visual phenomenology, and the gaze.
These
other analytical frames enable a consideration not only of images per
se, but also of their effect on the viewer, the human spectators, and
the subjects at the heart of Social Work. By bringing understandings and
experiences in Film, Media, and Communications, Visual Communication for Social Work Practice provides
the reader with a wide range of critically analytical frames for
practitioners, activists, educators, and researchers as they use and
create images. This invites a deeper knowledge and familiarity with the
power dimensions of the image, thus aligning with the social justice
dimension of Social Work. Examples are provided from cinema, popular
media, but more importantly from Social Work practitioners themselves to
demonstrate what has already been made possible as they create and use
images to further the interpersonal, communal, and justice dimensions of
their work.
This book will be of interest to scholars,
students, and social workers, particularly those with an interest in
critical and creative methodologies.