Life-World
Life-World (German Lebenswelt) is a
phenomenological concept of the world as immediately or directly experienced in
the subjectivity of everyday life – individually, socially, perceptually, and
practically. It is the word we live in and is lived (erlebt) by us.
The notion of Life-World is important in social work
since it is its starting point, its base of departure; it is where social work
“meets people” and starts working together. Although social work uses tools
that are pertaining also to the “other worlds” (world of social security,
social theory, politics, institutions) the final criteria of successful or
effective intervention is what happens in the Life-World itself, what really
happens to people and is lived by the people concerned. Hence, the Life-World
is the base and the measure of social work.
This operation is, therefore, about exploring the
Life-World, to get to know it better, also to acquire greater sovereignty over
it, and to find out what are the resources it contains and what is missing in
it to provide a better life. Unlike anthropology, it is not a voyeuristic
exercise, just of getting to know the ways people are living; it is geared
towards bringing the missing resources to a Life-World from without, usually
from the welfare state provision. It is therefore a pairing of the lived world
with other worlds, too abstract to be immediately experienced, like the world
of social security.
It could be said that social work is an amphibious
position based both in the Life-World and in more abstract domains of
legislation, economy, politics and especially of the welfare provision. A
social worker could be seen as a broker between the two realities. He or she
facilitates the redistributive flow of the resources from social accumulation
to where people can make use of them. He also acts as an interpreter between
the everyday language of living and the language of the abstract systems of
provision delivery and entitlement.
Language of action in the Life-World
Social work does not have much its own special language, a jargon, a
professional slang that would serve as the professional liturgy, as Latin has
been in church. Partly this is so because social work has no temple, no special
grand place where it is being practised (like hospital, court, prison, barracks
…), partly because in social work there is no higher truth to be defended and
related to people. Most importantly because social work is practising in the LW
of their users and needs to be understood. Not having a jargon of it is own in
social work is an advantage and necessity.
The fact is that we have to perform an operation quite contrary to
the standard operation of other professions. Namely,
the inmates of the special institutions have to learn the esoteric languages
and pertaining rules of the institutions. Social workers, in turn, have, in
order to understand what is going on between people, to learn their tongues,
talks and speeches and underlying rules, relations, mores etc. So far - similar
to anthropology. While the latter translates the learned into the deeper
meanings of structures or functions, social work relies on the imminent and immanent meanings and their
mappings and their transformation into
action. The new meanings will be acquired after the questions: “what is to
be done?” “What will we do?” “What will happen?” etc., have been asked.
The rationale of the operation is to render people being
provided and equipped and it is being done by enabling access to resources on
one hand, and activation of own resources on the other.
In order to do so, social work needs two sets of solid
knowledge. One is on Life-Worlds of social work users the other is on what is
there on offer, what is the accessible provision. The art of social work in
this operation is to match one with another. This knowledge is usually created
by mapping.
Mapping
Mapping is one of the main methodologies
in social work. It is a way of representing reality in a wholesome manner by
putting all important items ‘on a map’ thus forming spatially represented relationships
and thus enabling “orientation” or “navigation” through hitherto uncharted
territory, giving a holistic, integrative understanding of the issues at hand
and thus informing the needed action.
As in geography, the maps can
represent not only different territories but also different aspects of the
plane they tend to chart. They can be spatial maps or, as in Sociometry, chart
personal relationships, they can portray the discussion, topics and themes,
they can point out power differences, flows of good and acts, resources, ways
of doing things, circumstances of living etc. They can be simple sketches or
elaborate depictions of various parameters. They can serve as an underlying
background to an action, a general guide for acting or it can be used to
pinpoint specific knots, issues needing to be addressed.
Already made general maps of human behaviour, like mapping of the
drug use in certain area, like knowledge of everyday life and coping strategies
of old people, modes of children participation in schools etc., can be used –
but only to inform the specific maps that need to be made for a specific
person, group or community in order to address their actual living condition
and show their living reality. On the other side there are existing inventories
of the provision (if there are not, then they must be sketched). However, they
must be updated, mapped according to the relevance and adequacy to the maps of
the life world. They must be made as extensive as possible (by e.g. a
brainstorming) in order to maximise choice and adequacy of the response.
Ni komentarjev:
Objavite komentar