Approaching Late Colonial Social Work
Date:  Wednesday 4th October 2023
Time: 14:00 - 16:00 BST / 15:00 -17:00  CEST  
Contact: info@eswra.org

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Approaching Late Colonial Social Work

Abstract

I will critically assess how social work writing has dealt with the colonial. The seminar will draw from an archival study of the development of social welfare in Singapore as a British colony, in the late colonial period from the end of Japanese occupation in 1945 through to final independence in 1965.

I will take two broad questions by way of illustration and include group exercises on this material. First, I will sketch a case study of late colonial, welfare-engaged women in Singapore, in a world of imperial privilege, welfare exceptionalism and late colonial fragmentation. Second, I will depict late colonial social work practice, taking adoption in the ethnically diverse community of Singapore as the anchor for this. If we are to grasp the colonial heritage, these lives and practices should neither be ignored nor assigned to a past that has irretrievably been left behind. I seek to avoid the assumption that all social workers need to know about colonialism is its horrors.

The seminar connects with the work of these SIGs: Social Work History and Research. Social Work Research on Migration And Asylum. Social Justice and Human Rights; and Social Work Workforce Research

Speaker

Dr Ian Shaw. Formerly S R Nathan Professor of Social Work, National University of Singapore, and Professor Emeritus, University of York.

Structure

1.      Critical review of social work writing on the colonial, followed by brief Q&A. 15 minutes

2.      Theme #1: late colonial, welfare-engaged women in Singapore. Archive material followed by exercise considering instances from the data. 30 minutes.

3.      Theme #2: late colonial social work practice. Adoption in Singapore, 1945-1965. Archive material followed by exercise considering instances from the data. 30 minutes

4.      10 minute break

5.      Inferences and implications: I will signal the relevance of mutual influences between colonies and the metropole; the inter-relation of war and welfare; the role of central and colonial government officials; the significance of work by imperial anthropologists; women in late colonial social welfare; and the meaning of nation-building as part of late and post-colonial welfare programmes.  20 minutes

6.      Final Q and A.  10 minutes

The most helpful reading in advance of the seminar is the paper  appeared in The British Journal of Social Work Late colonial social work practice earlier this year, Late colonial social work practice It provides the foundations for the more empirical parts of the seminar.

Exercises - Welfare Engaged Women in a Late Colonial World - click here: https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:4aa84403-0156-3b7d-8563-ecc304b66560

Published Material

Shaw, I. 2023. ‘Approaching the colonial.’ British Journal of Social Work. 53 (1): 637-655

Shaw, I. 2022. ‘Late colonial women in a welfare world.’ Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/02185385.2022.2077817. Online first.

Late colonial social work practice. Qualitative Social Work22(4), 735–752, https://doi-org/10.1177/14733250221098602 
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