Part 3 Summary of Findings, Conclusions and
3.2 The Ethics of Social Work with Cross-border Migrants and the Question of How to Promote Social Justice
3.2.2 Social Work’s Global Definition and Statement of Ethical Principles: Guidance for Practitioners in the Field of Cross-border
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An oppositional culture that perceives normative production on immigration as discriminatory and thus ‘breakable’ … grounds a mistrust in norms that sometimes are not used even when favourable for clients ... This radical … discretion questions social justice, since it is grounded on an implicit and unpredictable selectivity, providing unequal responses to similar need profiles … This can boost exclusion in ways difficult to perceive and oppose, since they are typically based on informal and fragmented practices’ (Barberis and Boccagni 2014:i78).
In other words, a critical political outlook and structural analysis might be an important but possibly insufficient resource with which to achieve inclusionary, anti-oppressive and socially just outcomes. Also required is a systematic engagement of social workers with themselves, their own social positioning, needs, desires, value base and practices, and an alertness to the always possible yet unintended outcomes of their interventions.
In short, the reviewed literature is quite successful in delineating some of the origins, nature and dynamics of the ethical challenges encountered by practitioners working with cross- border migrants, and the ways in which social work practice falls short of meeting the profession’s aspirations of countering social injustice and promoting social justice. Yet the way in which practitioners might be enabled to do these aspirations greater justice is less clear. In the cited texts, the global definition of social work and the profession’s statement of ethical principles have been shown to provide important reference points for academic writers wishing to evaluate the ethics of social work practice in the field of cross-border migration. Yet concerns have emerged regarding the extent to which these documents are successful in actually supporting ethical practice. It is important to explore these tensions before drawing this chapter to a conclusion.
3.2.2 Social Work’s Global Definition and Statement of Ethical
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statements about societal relations as such. These developments find expression, inter alia, in the on-going efforts by the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) to define social work, and to build consensus around the profession’s normative base. Social work’s current definition was adopted by IFSW and IASSW in 2014. It reads,
Social work … promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people … Social work engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing … Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work (IASSW 2014:1).
The document entitled Ethics in Social Work: Statement of Principles, adopted by IFSW and IASSW in 2004, notes that,
Ethical awareness is a fundamental part of the professional practice of social workers. Their ability and commitment to act ethically is an essential aspect of the quality of the service offered to those who use social work services (IFSW/IASSW 2004:1).
The two organisations go on to explain that –
The purpose of the work of IASSW and IFSW on ethics is to promote ethical debate and … encourage social workers … to reflect on the challenges and dilemmas that face them and make ethically informed decisions about how to act in each particular case (IFSW/IASSW 2004:1).
To guide their debates and reflections, the ethics statement provides two overarching ethical principles, namely, ‘Human Rights and Dignity’ (IFSW/IASSW 2004:2-3) and ‘Social Justice’
(IFSW/IASSW 2004:3). With regard to the latter, the document asserts that ‘social workers have a responsibility to promote social justice in relation to society generally, and in relation to the people with whom they work’ (IFSW/IASSW 2004:3; highlights added). This principle is then broken down into five sub-sets, namely:
1. Social workers have a responsibility to challenge negative discrimination …
2. Social workers should recognise and respect the ethnic and cultural diversity of the societies in which they practice …
3. Social workers should ensure that resources at their disposal are distributed fairly, according to need …
4. Social workers have a duty to bring to the attention of their employers, policy makers, politicians and the general public situations where resources are inadequate or where distribution of resources, policies and practices are oppressive, unfair or harmful … 5. Social workers have an obligation to challenge social conditions that contribute to social
exclusion, stigmatisation or subjugation, and to work towards an inclusive society (IFSW/IASSW 2004:3).
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My main concern here is not with the substantive issues referred to in both the definition and the statement of ethical principles. I engage with a number of these concepts in Part 2 of the thesis. At this point, I am more interested in the documents’ implicit assumptions about how practitioners should go about knowing ‘just’ from ‘unjust’ and about the ways in which social workers could be motivated, enabled, or obliged to do what is needed to respond to ‘injustice’
and promote ‘justice’. In this regard, it is important to note that the ethics statement accords upfront importance to ethical debate and does not prescribe the kinds of action practitioners may take towards the attainment of social justice. However, it is equally important to note that when it comes to the details of what is to be done, social workers are reminded of their
‘responsibility’, ‘duty’ and ‘obligation’ to ‘recognise’ and ‘challenge’ injustices and to ‘ensure’
that justice prevails (IFSW/IASSW 2004:3).
In the statement of ethical principles, the ideas of knowing and doing something about social justice are closely interlinked. In both respects, the influence of the deontological and utilitarian traditions in social work ethics are apparent. In deontological thought, ethics are seen to be founded in a form of ‘rationalism, in which abstract and universal principles define the ‘right conduct’ (Hugman 2005:5). Regarding such principles as a definitive foundation for binding rules concerning behaviour and action, writers in the deontological tradition seek to ensure that ethical conduct is ‘reasoned’ rather than ‘arbitrary, subjective, self-interested or capricious’ (Hugman 2005:22). In this context, Kant’s categorical and practical imperatives have been influential, especially in their implication that ‘an act’s moral worth depends on the reasons for which it is done’ (Hinman, cited in Hugman 2005:6). In keeping with this tradition, the principle of social justice is declared central (IFSW/IASSW 2014) to the profession and therefore to defining the identity of its members. In asserting upfront that
‘ethical awareness is a fundamental part of … professional practice’ and that social workers’
‘commitment to act ethically is … essential’ (IFSW/IASSW 2004:1), the statement of ethical principles emphasises the importance of practitioners wanting to counter injustices and to promote conditions of justice as well as being able to discern what behaviours and actions are required at particular points in time. Thus, the IFSW and IASSW frame the attainment of social justice as dependent on social workers’ knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of their professional duty.
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How should practitioners go about knowing what their professional duties are in each particular case? In what direction should ethical debate be oriented as social workers try to work out what it is that they ought to do? The definition of social work and the statement of ethical principles draw on social work’s utilitarian tradition for direction. Writers in this tradition prioritise the question of an action’s consequence over that of its impetus. And indeed, social workers must often ‘weigh up which actions would be least harmful/most beneficial to a particular service user and which action would benefit most people or use resources most efficiently’ (Banks 2006:36). More generally then, utilitarianism’s ‘basic idea
… is that the right action is that which produces the greatest balance of good over evil (the principle of utility)’ (Banks 2006:36). Some utilitarian schools of thought highlight the importance of rules, which are not only said to facilitate ethical decision making processes, but which can in themselves be ‘tested and justified with reference to the principle of utility’
(Banks 2006:36). Utilitarian reasoning can be traced in both the 2014 definition of social work which commits the profession to promoting, for example, ‘the empowerment and liberation of people’ in general, in order to ‘advance social justice’ for all and to ‘enhance well-being’ at large (IFSW/IASSW 2014). To achieve this, the statement of ethical principles entreats social workers, for example, to ‘ensure that resources at their disposal are distributed fairly, according to need’ (IFSW/IASSW 2004). These directives rest upon an underlying assumption that it is both possible and desirable for social workers to base their pursuit of social justice in a rational calculation of the likely outcomes of their interventions.
Thus, it appears as a result of the influence of both deontological and utilitarianism traditions in the IFSW’s and IASSW’s normative outlook, that the overarching principle of social justice reflects two lines of thinking. One stipulates practitioners’ duties so as to guide their conduct, committing them to act so as to counter injustice and promote justice. The other describes the desired outcomes of such conduct – that is, inclusive, cohesive, tolerant, non- discriminatory, non-oppressive societies in which resources are made adequately available and distributed fairly and according to need; societies in which people are liberated, empowered, and well. How does one explain, in relation to these two traditions, the above observations that across a broad range of contexts, social workers and other practitioners witnessed, found it difficult to resist, and even actively participated in, institutional regimes considered by a wide range of authors to be unjust? None of the authors cited in this chapter
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suggest that their study participants were committed to promoting injustice. Instead in the majority of the studies cited, practitioners appeared to be doing their duty – at least in terms of what was expected of them by their employing organisations. Authors whom I found to be critical of the outlook, values and practices of practitioners in the field – such as Hayes and Humphries (2004), Briskman, Zion and Loff (2012), Mostowska (2014), and Jönsson (2014) – all leave open the possibility that many practitioners may have believed in fact that their actions were just and served to promote just ends. In other words, it is possible that when it came to the particular demands of specific situations, the meaning of social work’s ‘central’
(IFSW/IASSW 2014) commitment to social justice may have been unclear. Other authors provide evidence of their participants’ ethical awareness and the moral discomfort they experienced around unresolved ethical dilemmas in relation to the injustices in which they were implicated – for example, Sales and Hek (2004), Guhan and Liebling-Kalifani (2011), Al- Makhamreh, Spaneas and Neocleus (2012), and Robinson (2013, 2014). Yet, in spite of these practitioners’ awareness and apparent sense of duty in relation to their ethical responsibilities, when it came to the particular demands of specific situations, the implications for action of social work’s ‘central’ (IFSW/IASSW 2014) commitment to social justice may have remained unclear.
In deontological terms then, it is possible that even with a generalised sense of duty to promote justice and counter injustice, social workers may find it difficult to translate their universal orientations into particular visions for specific situations (that is, knowing what it is that requires something to be done), especially if surrounded by clearly articulated expectations, entrenched rules and known sanctions which suggest that in fact nothing needs to be done – or done differently – regarding a particular issue or concern. In utilitarian terms, it may be that among ethically aware practitioners, a global commitment to social justice can cause experiences of moral discomfort about a particular issue or concern. Still, this might not provide sufficient impetus and clarity for practitioners to discern what concrete actions may be required of them in response (that is, knowing what it is that can and should be done about a particular injustice, as well as feeling intent and able to do it), especially where this would entail reneging on concrete expectations, breaking set rules or exposing oneself to the risk of negative sanction from, for example, employing organisations. The implication is that indeed, agreeing on definitions, articulating moral expectations, stating rules for conduct and
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explicating desired outcomes seem to provide a certain basis for the normative evaluation of social work practice. Yet, the global definition of social work and the profession’s statement of ethical principles seem to provide insufficient grounds for a normative assessment of the values, attitudes and actions of the practitioners themselves. The two documents provide insufficient means for guiding, directing and supporting social workers practicing under difficult contextual conditions and facing complex work demands, in relation to which they have to discern, and act upon, the requirements of social justice. Yet this is the case in the field of social work with cross-border migrants.