{"title":"Everyday Ethics of Dignity Work: What Social Workers Do to Promote the Dignity of Service-users in Times of Austerity Measures and Welfare Stigma","authors":"Jante Schmidt","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2022.2038229","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The social work profession is committed to recognising the inherent dignity of humanity, as reflected in global and national ethical codes. The article shows what this commitment implies as a part of everyday ethics by developing the concept ‘dignity work’. Dignity work is an ongoing effortful moral activity social workers perform to promote the dignity of service-users. Social workers’ narratives, collected with professionals in the Netherlands, revealed that they do this mainly to counter welfare stigma. Welfare stigma currently forms the biggest threat to dignity as it defines people dependent on welfare arrangements and professional help as ‘undeserving’, questioning their worth as a person. Social workers perform three strategies of dignity work: affirming, equalising and including. With these practices they negotiate the self-sufficiency norm, dominant in the Dutch context, and try to counter ideas and feelings of undeservingness and worthlessness of clients. Their practices lay bare the working of ‘stigma power’ as social workers have no choice but to relate to welfare stigma daily. The analysis shows that the ethical is intertwined with the political. Studying dignity work in the context of austerity and welfare stigma reveals that otherwise seemingly ordinary everyday acts are morally and politically significant.","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2022-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ethics and Social Welfare","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2022.2038229","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"SOCIAL WORK","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
ABSTRACT The social work profession is committed to recognising the inherent dignity of humanity, as reflected in global and national ethical codes. The article shows what this commitment implies as a part of everyday ethics by developing the concept ‘dignity work’. Dignity work is an ongoing effortful moral activity social workers perform to promote the dignity of service-users. Social workers’ narratives, collected with professionals in the Netherlands, revealed that they do this mainly to counter welfare stigma. Welfare stigma currently forms the biggest threat to dignity as it defines people dependent on welfare arrangements and professional help as ‘undeserving’, questioning their worth as a person. Social workers perform three strategies of dignity work: affirming, equalising and including. With these practices they negotiate the self-sufficiency norm, dominant in the Dutch context, and try to counter ideas and feelings of undeservingness and worthlessness of clients. Their practices lay bare the working of ‘stigma power’ as social workers have no choice but to relate to welfare stigma daily. The analysis shows that the ethical is intertwined with the political. Studying dignity work in the context of austerity and welfare stigma reveals that otherwise seemingly ordinary everyday acts are morally and politically significant.
期刊介绍:
Ethics and Social Welfare publishes articles of a critical and reflective nature concerned with the ethical issues surrounding social welfare practice and policy. It has a particular focus on social work (including practice with individuals, families and small groups), social care, youth and community work and related professions. The aim of the journal is to encourage dialogue and debate across social, intercultural and international boundaries on the serious ethical issues relating to professional interventions into social life. Through this we hope to contribute towards deepening understandings and further ethical practice in the field of social welfare. The journal welcomes material in a variety of formats, including high quality peer-reviewed academic papers, reflections, debates and commentaries on policy and practice, book reviews and review articles. We actively encourage a diverse range of contributions from academic and field practitioners, voluntary workers, service users, carers and people bringing the perspectives of oppressed groups. Contributions might include reports on research studies on the influence of values and ethics in social welfare practice, education and organisational structures, theoretical papers discussing the evolution of social welfare values and ethics, linked to contemporary philosophical, social and ethical thought, accounts of ethical issues, problems and dilemmas in practice, and reflections on the ethics and values of policy and organisational development. The journal aims for the highest standards in its published material. All material submitted to the journal is subject to a process of assessment and evaluation through the Editors and through peer review.