Social work transnationally revisited

Abstract

The transnational interconnectedness of social work is not a new phenomenon. Historical analysis showed that social work has been entangled transnationally in many ways, and transnational studies provided a concept to describe and analyze these entanglements. The “transnational” concept is not only very common in social work discussions today, but it actually seems to have become a buzzword that is used to describe all kinds of phenomena, structures, and processes. The transnational perspective brought to light the “methodological nationalism” at work in the theory and practice of social work (Köngeter, 2009; Wimmer & Glick Schiller, 2002). It showed how social work has naturalized the nation-state, focusing on social process within the nation-state and its institutions as a natural unit of analysis and equating society with the nation-state. Transnational social work looks at border-crossing intertwinements of social processes and structures (Chambon, Schröer, & Schweppe, 2012; Negi & Furman, 2010). With a transnational perspective, we can analyze how and in which constellations social work is part of border policies and services (McGrath, Hynie, & King, 2014) and how it is – directly or indirectly – placed in a national frame. This does not mean that national policies of social work are always problematic, but that it is important to reflect on how the national frame includes some people and excludes others. The nation-state is still one of the crucial frameworks organizing both our lives and the social work profession. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the concept of “international social work” has examined the national limitations of social work by recognizing the fact that actors, policies, and social services do not stop at state borders (Cox & Pawar, 2006; Graßhoff, Homfeltd, & Schröer, 2016; Healy, 2008; Kammer-Rutten, Schleyer-Lindemann, Schwarzer, & Wang, 2016; Midgley, 2001). A cross-border social work (cf. “global social work,” Noble, Strauss, & Littlechild, 2014) thus contains more than just the transfer of concepts and models from one national context to another. Salustowicz (2009, p. 70) calls for “[t] he overcoming of one’s cultural, social and political boundaries.” However, in research and practice, this approach is often grounded in a national comparison of different political and social work models, without considering the “bridging object,” the “trans,” or the “transmigratory element of social work” (Herz & Olivier, 2013b, p. 7). A central element of transnational social work is the focus on the border crossings of people, social relations, organizations and policies, and the processes and structures that evolve when these social flows transcend national borders and