Noting current postcolonial critiques and endeavours to 'decolonise the university' and its various disciplines, the article points to the importance of the work of Frantz Fanon and especially his Studies in a dying colonialism and The wretched of the earth. The focus is on Fanon's interrogation of the use of the veil in Algeria and how he perceived that, subject to ongoing revolutionary turbulence, family relations were being progressively transformed. Moreover, it is suggested that his views on violence warrant further exploration than is ordinarily provided in mainstream and conventional accounts of his work. While pessimistic, Fanon's concerns about the evolution of postcolonial societies were also timely and prescient.
Abstract Efforts to 'decolonize' social work, along with the contemporary resurgence of racism and fascism, might prompt a return to the work of Frantz Fanon. Mostly focusing on Black Skin, White Masks and a recent collection, Alienation and Freedom, it is argued that Fanon's commitment to liberation and the creation of a 'new humanism' was reflected in both his anti-colonial politics and in his practice as a psychiatrist. A defining characteristic of Fanon's professional role is that he tried to imbue it with same values and progressive aspirations central to his political project. It is maintained that Fanon's aspiration to dismantle obstacles to democracy is reflected in his aspiration to confront oppressive categories pertaining to 'race' and also those rooted in the 'common sense' of the Psychiatric Hospital. In both contexts, his political and professional contributions convey significant messages for social work and chime with the ethical commitments of the profession to promote the 'liberation of people'.
This article presents a biographical approach to the history of the changes in the theoretical appraisal of the secularisation concept, grounding on personal relations of the author with its two major theoreticians: Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann. The theory of secularisation is gradually presented as unsuitable for interpreting the ideological/religious dimension of the liberal cultures of Western Europe. It states, that what is currently interpreted as secularisation is in fact the dissolution of imposed fateful ideological monopolies. The result is the development of not mono-colored/secular, but ideologically multicoloured/pluralistic societies. The group of the atheised and of consistently believing and practicing Christians are typologically on the fringes of the society, while the largest groups are the skeptics, the insecure, but also the privately-religious. The question is raised about coping strategies of contemporary people, living in the inconsistent world of constant collusion of the secular and the religious realities.
Although social work engagement with Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) has been meagre, it has been recently suggested that her conceptualisations are significant for the profession. This article seeks to problematise the presentation of Arendt to a social work readership, highlighting the failure to adequately historicise her work. In terms of her ideas, there is much to gain in examining this intellectual's prolific and often controversial contributions, and seven dimensions are identified as significant for the times in which we live. Nevertheless, there are still major criticisms which can be levelled at her core conceptualisations. The article dwells on Arendt's theorisation of the 'private', the 'public' and the 'social', and it is suggested that she is unaligned with sociologically informed theorisation underpinning critical and radical social work.
Brazil's manguebeat of the nineties was one of the most fertile Latin American cultural scenes of recent decades, not only for its rich musical creation but also for the playful, yet profound vision of social and ecological justice it championed. Twenty-some years after the death of Chico Science, its most iconic personality, this essay explores the strikingly relational philosophical bent at its core—one molded by the collectivism typical of its origins in local and global expressions of Black Atlantic cultures. Manguebeat was swamped in everyday philosophical questions about which kinds of knowledge, power, and being served to exacerbate violence, inequality, and harm to the environment, and which could instead encourage greater peace and harmony. Analyzing Chico Science's three music videos, I discuss the "coexistentialism" of manguebeat, not only in a pacifistic sense or one of environmental rebirth but also in its insistence that all real living is "living with."
The topic of this paper is a retrospective of the history of literary discourse on Europe, from the Vienna Congress to the present. The Congress of Vienna was seen as a step back for European cooperation by contemporary authors like Saint-Simon, Schmidt-Phiseldek, Goerres and Mazzini. They understood that a constitution was the precondition for the future unity of a European federation. Later, new voices were heard in which the debate about a common constitution for Europe played a dominating role, and writings on Europe were published by Richard Graf Couldenhove-Kalergi, Heinrich Mann and Jules Romains. After WWII writers like Ernst Jünger and Reinhold Schneider pleaded for a continental constitution. After the common constitution was rejected in 2005, the debate on Europe gave way to other topics. Today, Robert Menasse believes the European crisis can be overcome by using regions (instead of nations) as the building blocks of a united Europe.
The article furnishes a critical commentary on social work in the People's Republic of China (PRC). It is maintained that it is important to contextualise this development by taking into account the restoration of capitalism and wider structures of governance. Although there is no perfect alignment, it is argued that the (re-)creation of social work occurred during the same period when a Chinese proletariat was (re-)created. Drawing on the work of Antonio Gramsci and resisting a reductively mechanistic interpretation of the profession's evolution, it is maintained that social work's new centrality in the PRC can be best understood if it is situated alongside the hegemonic project of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to construct, what is referred to as, the 'harmonious society'. The article concludes by tentatively identifying the emerging contours of social work with distinctive Chinese traits.
Summary Having outlined Foucault's articulation of power and governmentality, the article critically explores attempts to translate the philosopher's theorisation into social work. Findings After briefly referring to Jacques Donzelot's work and that of other writers, it is argued that Foucault's conceptual 'tools' are problematic for those seeking to promote critical approaches within the field of social work. Those influenced by Foucault's complex contributions may amplify a defective understanding of power which unduly emphasises 'soft' power and neglects the continuing significance of hierarchical and coercive power. This is reflected in Foucault's analysis of the state and, at a micro level, his remarks on sexualised interactions involving adults and children. Efforts to 'apply' Foucauldian reasoning within social work may also risk promoting politically passive forms of theory and practice. Applications Contributing to the discipline's literature on Foucault, the article maintains the social work scholarship has much to gain by engaging with work, but this engagement might aspire to become more critical.
Marxism is frequently regarded in a disdainful and dismissive way in social work education. However, often drawing on Marx's own words, this article argues that many of his focal ideas have continuing resonance for contemporary social work. Three key themes are briefly examined: Marx's analysis of labour and working lives in a capitalist society; neoliberalism and the voraciousness of capital; and the role of the state and dominating ideology. Finally, the discussion will turn from theory to praxis, illustrating how practitioners and educators within the field of social work might endeavour not only to 'interpret' the world, but also to 'change' it.
In Germany, 22% of the total primary energy usage is used for room heating and domestic hot water. Oil and gas are the most common energy sources for heating, while renewable energies are rarely used. In order to reach the climate targets set by the German government, primary energy input must be reduced and more renewable energy should be supplied to cover the energy demand. At the same time, the efficiency of energy usage should be increased. District heating systems offer a good opportunity for using renewable energies in combination with thermal energy storage. One approach to reducing the primary energy input and increasing the efficiency of usage is the so called exergy concept. It aims at using the energy meaningfully by matching the exergy level of the supply with the exergy level of the demand. Thus, high exergy energy is not used to cover low exergy demand. Numerous examples of applied exergy analysis of district heating systems and thermal energy storages can be found in the literature. However, an integral approach and assessment of different heating technologies for district heating systems by using energy, exergy, ecological and economical analyses is not known. Further, exergy analyses of thermal energy storages integrated into district heating systems are not publicly available. Therefore, in this work, dynamical simulation models of district heating systems are developed with the MATLAB/Simulink based toolbox CARNOT. The models are used to investigate different heating technologies and to give a comparative overview. Further, a new method to calculate thermal energy storage is developed to separate between the exergy change due to a changing reference temperature and the exergy change due to the mixing of temperature layers. Six different heat supply scenarios are considered. These are a gas boiler scenario, a combined heat and power scenario, a geothermal heat pump scenario, a combination of a geothermal heat pump and a combined heat and power plant scenario, a solar thermal collector scenario, and a scenario with a combination of an air source heat pump and a geothermal heat pump scenario. The investigated district heating system consists of a building cluster with 11 buildings and a total annual heat demand of 263.7MWh. The calculated exergy content of the heat demand is 14.0MWh. The six different heat supply scenarios are assessed using energy, exergy, ecological and economical analysis. The results show that the combined heat and power scenario has the highest economical efficiency but a high fossil energy input, while the scenario with a combination of an air source heat pump and a geothermal heat pump has the lowest fossil energy input and global warming potential, but is the most expensive. The geothermal heat pump scenario has the lowest total exergy input and shows the best overall performance. In regards to the performance of a thermal energy storage within a district heating system the findings demonstrate that it is very important to take all parameters affecting the storage into account during the dimensioning of the storage, since it reacts very sensitively. Overall it is shown that the developed thermal energy storage calculation method and the models are suited to study thermal energy storages and district heating systems.
