Socio-ecological narratives of social work in a global context: an approach from the World Social Work Conference SWSD 2024
Keywords:
Social work, Environment, World Social Work Conference, Environmental crisis, Environmental justiceArticle Sidebar
Accepted 2025-11-25
Published 2026-01-01
Main Article Content
This article analyzes and characterizes the papers on socio-ecological issues delivered at the Joint World Conference on Social Work (April 2024, Panama). The conference is a space of planetary encounter that allows to approach exchanges of knowledge, visibilization of problems and establishment of interesting emerging issues for a disciplinary exploration. Out of a total of 899 papers available, 68 were on socio-ecological themes which were analyzed according to prevailing topics, geographical origin of the papers and declared roles. We find disciplinary narratives centered on the environmental crisis, with particular emphasis on climate change, socio-natural disasters, community action, and the Sustainable Development Goals as the main guiding framework. We conclude that Social Work narratives possess ethical and contextual opportunities articulated in a great professional versatility. However, they also confront hegemonic narratives that hyper climatize the debate and align it with the dominant environmental agenda invisibilizing the violence and conflictive of extractives colonialism. In response, Social Work must strengthen its ethical-political positioning by drawing on its theoretical and methodological capacities to advance toward an ecocentrism turn.
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