Complexity and Social Work

Hans Van Ewijk

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351612579
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Sociologie

Being socially competent is essential in late modern society. We expect people to find their own accommodation, partner, job, community and lifestyle and struggle to find answers for those who are not able or do not have the opportunity to achieve these things. By placing social complexity, social vulnerability and social efficacy within a framework of social policy and social practice, Complexity and Social Work argues that growing social complexity excludes more and more citizens from social participation.

The book starts with exploring complexity, super-diversity, vulnerability and social efficacy. From there the book deals with the discourses of social policy, social work and social work research, pledging for social policy aiming at desired outcomes, for generic contextual social work, and for a research practice that recognises practical wisdom.

Aimed at final year undergraduates, postgraduates, professionals, trainers and lecturers involved in social work, social policy, social care, mental health and allied fields who are committed to treating socially vulnerable people with respect and acceptance, this book, the first of its kind, offers new perspectives on social complexity for practice, theory and research in human services.

1

Social complexity and vulnerability

Introduction

The chapter begins with demonstrating the increase in social vulnerability in our societies. Increasing complexity is one of the dominant explanations for this increase. From societies and communities that determined people’s positions, we have moved to a world where people are expected to change and find their own place in society. Social capital plays a decisive role in helping people position themselves, and thus serves as an exclusionary power in our societies. Those who are not willing or able to socialise easily are hindered in positioning themselves. In the last sections of this chapter I elaborate on the character of complexity and superdiversity, and round up by discussing the need for a shift in perspectives in social policy.

Setting the problem

Increase in number of people facing difficulties in coping with daily life

In creating the welfare state, the overall idea was to expel serious social problems, like poverty, illiteracy and homelessness. Promoting well-being for all was expected to lead to a decrease in institutionalisation, in the sense that fewer people would need to be imprisoned or hospitalised. The facts, however, remain different. According to European research, one-third of the European population experiences serious problems in coping with daily life and with their mental health (Witchen et al., 2011). Although severe poverty might have seen a decrease, the number of people dependent on all kinds of benefits has certainly not shown any decline. On the contrary, institutional dependency shows a steep rise. Some years ago, I conducted a study on developments in institutionalisation in the Netherlands. I defined institutionalisation as the number of people treated and/or placed in institutions or intensive programmes of youth care, mental health, care for the disabled, special schools, prisons, social care (mainly elderly care), debt relief and benefit systems for people with serious disabilities and disorders (Van Ewijk, 2010). The overall outcome of this study was rather shocking. The number of children in youth care showed an increase of 7% to 10% yearly. This was also the case for mental health. If this present rate of increase is left unaddressed, in ten years from now 1 out of 3 children will be in youth care (Van Yperen, 2013). Further, the annual overall growth in the number of people institutionalised has ranged between 5% and 10% for decades. Experts from other European countries also recognise this trend. Like most European countries, the Netherlands has been aiming for de-institutionalisation and bringing down institutionalisation numbers for decades. This, however, is just a hollow claim. Ground reality shows a different picture with ongoing growth in institutional ‘care’, and even a reduction of investments in local social support.

If we assume – and this is a prudent assumption – that approximately 1 out of 10 people are facing serious social and mental problems, then it is true that 1 of 3 families encounter such intense problematic situations on a daily basis. Perhaps the family has a child facing serious problems at school, or a depressive parent, or a partner addicted to alcohol, gaming or drugs, or sometimes all three. My country is one of the richest in the world with one of the best health systems in place. For children in particular, the Netherlands is deemed a paradise and is ranked among the ‘best’ countries in the world (Bradshaw, Martorano, Natalie & de Neubourg, 2013). In international comparative researches on life satisfaction, the Netherlands always features among the top ten places in the world. Why then do we still observe this remarkable increase in problems in the domain of behaviour and relationships; the social domain?

Discussing the rise in socio-psychological problems

Dalrymple, an often quoted English psychiatrist, stated that his colleagues from India who moved to London to work in the poor districts were pleasantly surprised in the beginning by all the services offered to the poor, but became critical after a while when they realised that the British poor were always claiming and blaming. The poor feel entitled to such services and benefits, and their marginal position in their perception is due to the system, the existing structures and the rich. Further, according to Dalrymple, his colleagues from India observed a remarkable difference between the Indian poor and the British poor in living standards and their respective attitudes. Instead of claiming and blaming, the Indian poor accepted their way of life and created a shared culture comprising a mix of modesty and pride (Dalrymple, 2001). Dalrymple used this constructed example as an argument for his theory of the over-dependence of citizens on state services and benefits. In his view, Western European states spoil their citizens by providing an overwhelming state-guaranteed care system. Other society critics speak of a ‘saturated society’ (Sulkunen, 2009) or a society that creates dependants (Marsland, 1996). Half a century ago, Ivan Illich had a high social standing for his theories on institutionalisation and making people too dependent on the education, physical and mental health systems. In the Netherlands, Hans Achterhuis’s publication De markt van welzijn en geluk (The market of well-being and happiness) was a bestseller and dominated the social work discourse for years. Achterhuis’s thesis was that social work and care institutions were targeting growth by expanding overall diagnoses and prescriptions but not through effective therapies. Citizens were told that they had behavioural problems, disorders, defects, handicaps or problems in their relationships, and their treatment comprised social work, social care, therapies and a range of interventions. The institutions – both profit and non-profit – were answering this call through the iron law of expansion (Achterhuis, 1979).

This reasoning also reflects that of Foucault who drew attention to the ‘soft disciplining mechanisms’ of modern society. In more traditional societies, people were overtly suppressed and punishments were often public and cruel. These societies were based on manifest and visible execution of power exercised within hierarchical structures. Gradually, the disciplining process moved to a more ‘civilised’ way of exerting control over people. The characteristic of this new disciplining process was a socio-psychological permeation of society by observing people and introducing soft interventions. Civilisation in this respect was the change from direct disciplining to more indirect forms of disciplining, and eventually to educating people to discipline themselves. Self-regulation became the dominant principle over time (Elias, 1969), and if a person was incapable of self-regulation and ‘civilised’ behaviour, professional help was called for. This subtle disciplining fits into a more complex, open and seemingly horizontal society. This in a way is close to Marxist theories in terms of the analyses that the state and society cause the problems. However, the extent to which the state and society are willingly suppressing people in these subtle disciplining and propagating state-dependency processes is open for discussion. In Foucault’s view, this disciplining permeates the entire system, targeting all institutions and citizens (1975).

Other society critics propose a simpler opposite ideology or political movement of the felon. Social workers mostly view neo-liberalism and globalisation, and sometimes third way socialism as well, as the causes or at least the perpetuators of an inhuman world. To such critics, neoliberalism and globalisation aim to economise for the sake of more profit-making and, to that end, give up on the idea of the social welfare state. Globalisation transforms the world into an open market at the expense of the poor. The international social work definition as represented by the International Federation of Social Workers and the social work schools stresses that social workers, driven by the idea of social justice, have to liberate people from suppression (IFSW, 2017).

From a different angle we could explain the sharp increase in treatment of socio-psychological problems as the result of a substantially improved care system with better diagnoses and treatments. The more and earlier people are treated for disorders and behavioural and relationship problems, the greater the increase in well-being. That the most developed welfare states have the happiest populations is, in this perspective, the proof of the pudding.

These different perspectives, nevertheless, are not fully satisfactory in explaining the increasing demand for social and socio-psychological support and interventions in welfare states. I fail to see such an increase as the result of only neo-liberalism and globalisation. The increase in the new socio-psychological problems is observable and to be expected even under more socio-democratic governments. The argument cited above focuses primarily on the surface of the issue. With regard to explaining material poverty, there is certainly a critical point to be made against neo-liberalism, but when it comes to explaining problems in the non-material domain – problems of behaviour and relationships – the argument falls short. Explanations based on the failures of the welfare state which make people dependent by means of subtle disciplining or transform the state into a service delivery system do have some explanatory power. If we approach people through the socio-psychological lens viewing the state as a producer or trader in social services, it is to be expected that the citizens also perceive themselves through this lens. Nevertheless, I still do not think that these explanations adequately address the essential change in our society leading to the increase in new social problems. The problems encountered by most people in our late modern societies are not just the consequence of the perspectives and systems that are eager to diagnose and treat people. This does not explain the prevalence of real socio-psychological problems and, in my view, underestimates the difficulties faced by many people in coping with late modern life. Moreover, the belief that the ongoing increase in mental health users should be seen as a positive, preventive and supportive approach underestimates the hardship of experiencing socio-psychological and social needs.

In this book we regularly revert to the concept of social complexity. Social complexity is related to the growing space for change, growing mobility and flexibility, increasing fragmentation of services, professions and products, and increasing bureaucracy in processes. The important characteristic of complexity is that it does not reduce these issues to one cause or one clear diagnosis, let alone a clear answer or solution. Social complexity suggests that it is almost impossible for people to entirely oversee their own world and manage their personal and family daily lives because of the multitudinous challenges, changes, claims, ambiguities, conflicts and pressures involved.

States, businesses, schools, families and individuals are all coping with complexity and unpredictability. The ongoing acceleration of change is often seen as a consequence of a society aiming at welfare and production, with capitalism as the thriving power behind the productive society. The interests of the few at the top are the driving force of capitalism. In this perspective, the longing for financial capital is the ‘evil-doer’. However, I am in no way convinced that this is a comprehensive explanation for the growing complexity. I assume that humankind, even without capitalism, has an in-built capacity for development, and the success herein lies in the expansion of knowledge stemming from human curiosity, capacities, needs and interests. These characteristics do not appear in capitalism alone. The drive to know and to acquire knowledge is fundamental to the very make-up of human beings and human communities, as already foresaid millennia ago in the Bible and Koran: ‘but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat’ (Genesis 2:17; see also: Koran Surah Al-Araf 7:19–24). The primary problem of expanding knowledge, however, is its increasingly differentiated and fragmented character. The fragmentation of knowledge has a tremendous impact and, once in motion, the process is unstoppable. Knowledge is now overwhelming human beings, creating its own logics and worlds. Scientists are no longer capable of even overseeing their own discipline; citizens are puzzled by the daily social complexity they encounter in nearly everything.

We deal with the issue of growing social complexity throughout this book, without looking too much for misleading ideologies and who is to blame, but focusing instead on the growth of social complexity and what drives it. How does social complexity affect people’s lives? And how should we deal with social complexity? These are the fundamental questions addressed here.

Social vulnerability

A second dominant concept in this book is social vulnerability. This refers to all those people who are not fully able to meet the standards of adequate participation in our societies on account of disabilities, disorders, traumas, poverty or experiencing insurmountable problems with social complexity. We have learned to categorise people according to their social backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, disabilities, disorders, and so on. The ‘old social quest’ was to give access to all these categories to establish social justice. But social vulnerability permeates all categories, and access and justice are not the answers to all of these cases. Social vulnerability in fact permeates all of society. Coping with it is complicated and not answered by an endless categorisation of vulnerabilities.

The impact of social vulnerability has obvious financial consequences. In the production-oriented society the first cost factor is that of reduced participation. If many people are rendered incapable in work because of their social vulnerability, it leads to an economic loss. This holds even in the case of unpaid care and voluntary work. A second cost factor is the expense incurred for treatment, possibly involving hospitalisation, institutionalisation or intensive social support. The growth of special care institutes all across Europe clearly demonstrates this cost factor. A more implicit cost factor concerns unregistered socially vulnerable people, who are taken care of by the family but live isolated from everything, or are homeless. Many people in our societies seem to be at the borderline between living independently and being institutionalised. The societal quest centres on how to prevent more people from crossing this border and being institutionalised or becoming lifelong borderliners.

These economic costs are only one side of the coin; the social costs form the other. The impact of social vulnerability on family life is hard to overestimate. It can be sensed in day-to-day instances such as when a member of the family is suffering or causing conflicts and creating chaos. Families suffer from members who fail to care for themselves, fail at school or at work, are addicted to drugs or alcohol or gaming, are unable to socialise or are always restless or depressive. Socially vulnerable people often suffer from not feeling accepted, and sometimes from depression on account of feelings of rejection and failure. To not be seen as normal, to not be understood or to not be able to connect with others is a painful experience. However, social vulnerability is not a sign of failure; it belongs to life. In a way, we all have certain vulnerabilities and periods of vulnerability in our lives. Many people, however, experience chronic social vulnerability which renders them incapable of participating in our societies to the extent expected by the existing standards. We should recognise and respect social vulnerability; but this alone will not do away with its impact on people and their lives. We need further social strategies to specifically address the problem of growing social vulnerability in complex societies.

One of the most painful impacts of social vulnerability is the loss of ‘self-realisation’. Our perspective on human beings is that they have the capacity to develop intellectual, physical, cultural, instrumental and social capabilities. This is a normative perspective, more so because we have thoughts about the direction this personal development should take. Development is steered by values, norms and expectations. The problem essentially arises when, for a variety of reasons, some people face obstacles in their development. Quite often these obstacles are external, as in Dalrymple’s narrative of the poor in India’s big cities being poor on account of a simple lack of opportunities. All societies and communities encounter people facing handicaps in developing personal capabilities. Next to these there are also internal factors that hinder personal development. People can be confused about their own lives and unable to direct themselves, to grasp the social codes and to develop feelings of empathy. They might be feeling ‘empty’ inside, or experiencing grave unhappiness. The inner and outer worlds are interwoven, but not mechanically in a way that the outer world steers the inner or the other way around. The connection between these two worlds is more interactive and dynamic; for instance, it is in developing personal and community bonds within the family and neighbourhood that people find themselves in excluded positions or experience troublesome behaviour. We recognise that people differ in their intellectual capacities, physical power and artistic dispositions. There is, however, less recognition for differences in social capacities and their influence on the capacity to steer one’s own life, to connect and to adapt. It can hurt profoundly if you are unable to meet expectations; it makes you socially vulnerable. Social vulnerability cannot be captured in a clear definition, let alone brought under the scope of a clear diagnosis. Nevertheless, I provide a tentative description of social vulnerability below in terms of four characteristics. This is how I use this concept throughout the book, with the hope of unfolding vulnerability in social co...