Re-imagining Social Work: Towards Creative Practice

Jim Ife · Rimple Mehta · Sharlotte Tusasiirwe

Dec 2023 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

Social workers are increasingly faced with contemporary global challenges such as inequality, climate change and displacement of people. As a field committed to supporting the world's most vulnerable populations and communities, social work must adapt to meet the needs of this changing global landscape. Re-imagining Social Work broadens the imaginative horizons for social workers and acquaints readers with their potential to creatively contribute to global change. Written in an accessible style, this book motivates readers to think outside the box when it comes to linking theory to their social work practice, in order to construct innovative solutions to prominent social problems. Re-imagining Social Work provides a unique perspective on how social work can evolve for the future. Through theory and critical perspective, this book provides the skills required to be an innovative creative social worker.

About the author

'Jim Ife has been active in social work education since the 1970s. He has been Professor of Social Work at The University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Western Sydney University, and was also Handa Professor of Human Rights Education at Curtin, where he is now Emeritus Professor. His main interests have been community development and human rights, and he has published books in both fields. He has also been active in community engagement, and was President of Amnesty International Australia in the 1990s, as well as Secretary of the Human Rights Commission of the International Federation. of Social Workers. His best-known books are Community Development and Human Rights and Social Work (both in multiple editions with Cambridge University Press). He is now retired.'

Rimple Mehta is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University. She has previously worked at the School of Social Work, Tata Institute for Social Sciences, Mumbai and School of Women's Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Her research and field engagements broadly focus on women in prison, refugee women, and human trafficking. She engages with questions of borders, citizenship and criminology of mobility. She has worked with women in prisons/detention in Mumbai, Kolkata, Sydney and The Netherlands. Her paper titled 'So Many Ways to Love You/Self: Negotiating Love in a Prison' won the 2013 Enloe Award and was published in the International Journal of Feminist Politics. Her monograph titled 'Women, Mobility and Incarceration: Love and Recasting of Self across the Bangladesh-India Border' was published by Routledge in 2018. Her latest co-edited volumes are titled 'Women, Incarcerated: Narratives from India' and 'Pandemic of Perspectives: Creative Re-imaginings'.

Sharlotte Tusasiirwe is an internationally-educated social work lecturer, researcher and activist. After completing a bachelor's degree in Social Work at Makerere University in Uganda and a master's degree in Social Work and Human rights from University of Gothenburg, Sweden, Sharlotte pursued her Ph.D. at Western Sydney University, Australia. Sharlotte is very interested in researching Social Work Education and her Ph.D. was focused on how to decolonise social work education and practice to create culturally appropriate and contextually relevant profession. She has researched areas of African knowledges and Obuntu/Ubuntu philosophies; culturally appropriate practice; ageing and age-old wisdom; community-led initiatives, mental health, parenthood of migrant parents in diaspora. She is the author of the upcoming book titled Decolonising and Reimagining Social Work in Africa: Alternative Epistemologies and Practice Models.