Heritage and Hermeneutics: Towards a Broader Interpretation of Interpretation

This article re-examines the theoretical basis for environmental and heritage interpretation in tourist settings in the light of hermeneutic philosophy. It notes that the pioneering vision of heritage interpretation formulated by Freeman Tilden envisaged a broadly educational, ethically informed and transformative art. By contrast, current cognitive psychological attempts to reduce interpretation to the monological transmission of information, targeting universal but individuated cognitive structures, are found to be wanting. Despite growing signs of diversity, this information processing approach to interpretation remains dominant. The article then presents the alternative paradigm of hermeneutics through the works of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer, to provide a broader interpretation of interpretation. This not only captures the essence of Tilden’s definition but construes heritage interpretation as a more inclusive, culturally situated, critically reflexive and dialogical practice

Social Work as Revolutionary Praxis? The contribution to critical practice of Cornelius Castoriadis’s political philosophy

Social work is a contested tradition, torn between the demands of social governance and autonomy. Today, this struggle is reflected in the division between the dominant, neoliberal agenda of service provision and the resistance offered by various critical perspectives employed by disparate groups of practitioners serving diverse communities. Critical social work challenges oppressive conditions and discourses, in addition to addressing their consequences in individuals’ lives. However, very few recent critical theorists informing critical social work have advocated revolution. A challenging exception can be found in the work of Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–97), whose explication of ontological underdetermination and creation evades the pitfalls of both structural determinism and post-structural relativism, enabling an understanding of society as the contested creation of collective imaginaries in action and a politics of radical transformation. On this basis, we argue that Castoriadis’s radical-democratic revisioning of revolutionary praxis can help in reimagining critical social work’s emancipatory potential

Garotas de loja, história social e teoria social [Shop Girls, Social History and Social Theory]

Shop workers, most of them women, have made up a significant proportion of Britain’s labour force since the 1850s but we still know relatively little about their history. This article argues that there has been a systematic neglect of one of the largest sectors of female employment by historians and investigates why this might be. It suggests that this neglect is connected to framings of work that have overlooked the service sector as a whole as well as to a continuing unease with the consumer society’s transformation of social life. One element of that transformation was the rise of new forms of aesthetic, emotional and sexualised labour. Certain kinds of ‘shop girls’ embodied these in spectacular fashion. As a result, they became enduring icons of mass consumption, simultaneously dismissed as passive cultural dupes or punished as powerful agents of cultural destruction. This article interweaves the social history of everyday shop workers with shifting representations of the ‘shop girl’, from Victorian music hall parodies, through modernist social theory, to the bizarre bombing of the Biba boutique in London by the Angry Brigade on May Day 1971. It concludes that progressive historians have much to gain by reclaiming these workers and the service economy that they helped create

Colonialism in denial: US propaganda in the Philippine-American war

The Philippine–American War (c.1899–1913), which led to the colonial subjugation of the Philippines by the United States for over forty years and the suppression of the first independent republic in South-East Asia, is one of America’s forgotten wars. The historical amnesia surrounding this conflict is no accident. It is an enduring legacy of US government and military propaganda, widely disseminated by a largely supportive corporate press, which contributed in no small way to the American victory both at home and abroad. Propaganda is understood here as the deliberate falsification, distortion or tendentious portrayal of events to justify a political cause to the wider public. What I want to argue about this case, is that successful propaganda does not occur in the context of an otherwise rational and empirically verifiable public discourse. Successful war propaganda has to be reconciled with the symbolic self-interpretations of a national community

Towards a history of critical traditions in Australian social work

This article situates the social work and human service professions in a long view of history, born of the clash between liberal-individualist and socialist-collectivist responses to the social miseries of modern, western capitalism. In this long view, critical social work is conceived as heir to struggles for social justice that predate but are amplified in modernity. In Australia, as elsewhere, liberal-individualism was dominant in social work’s beginnings but always amid currents of social reform, which significantly impacted the social welfare occupations in the early 1970’s. This radicalism, sought not only to relieve people’s suffering but to change the social conditions engendering it. The radical social work of the 1970’s has subsequently developed in diverse ways under the successive influences of Marxist, feminist, anti-racist, postcolonial, postmodern and various other approaches to constitute the diverse family of critical social work today

Poulantzas' Strategic Analysis of Fascism

The term 'fascism' continues to be very much in currency in Philippines society. To the Filipino people, its meaning is often drawn from pained memory of wholesale deprivation of democratic rights and large-scale human rights abuses. Yet, to many, the fear of fascism has still to give way to a deeper understanding of this menace. This may hold true even among those belonging to the progressive movement. One Marxist philosopher and theoretician who gave extended treatment of the issues surrounding the character and conditions giving rise to fascism was Nicos Poulantzas, whose theory is employed here to interrogate the debates about fascism in the post-Marcos Philippines context

Henry Giroux's vision of critical pedagogy: Educating social work activists for a radical democracy

This chapter explores Henry Giroux’s vision of critical pedagogy and its implications for social work education and practice. Giroux offers a rich, philosophical and political approach to education that can be applied to help reinvigorate social work as a critical project. His vision is committed to creating citizen activists who are cognisant of structural oppression, yet also connected with a sense of agency to work toward a radically democratic and just society. The implications of this are articulated for social work education and practice, particularly with regard to Giroux’s critique of neoliberalism and degradation of education. Giroux’s critique of technicist education, and his emphasis on the need for critical theories are highlighted and applied to the example of teaching social work practice skills through role-plays. Giroux’s concepts of educated hope and agency, and reconceptualisation of critical pedagogy beyond the classroom are also similarly explored in light of their relevance for social work

Critical social work education as democratic paideía: Inspiration from Cornelius Castoriadis to educate for democracy and autonomy

The question of education for democratic ‘empowerment and liberation’, and how this might guide pedagogic practice is seldom raised and extremely challenging for social work education today. This chapter takes up the proposition that social work, through its educational practices, ‘can’ deliver on its promise of ‘democratic practice’ if democracy is understood as a process and not a predefined product. We argue that such a process and its embodiment in institutions cannot exist without the formation of radically democratic subjects, people (including social workers) capable of questioning dominant social forms and of creating new forms and practices. Accordingly, this chapter explores the educational implications for social work of the work of the revolutionary theorist, Cornelius Castoriadis (1921–1997). Castoriadis’ philosophy accords a crucial role to democratic pedagogy (paideía) as an essential form of praxis in the creation of a radically democratic, egalitarian and sustainable society. In particular, we examine his idea (against (neo)liberal individualisation) that ‘autonomy’ is simultaneously an individual and social project that begins in, and is always dependent upon, individual and collective self-reflection. This argument is illustrated by examples from the authors’ classroom experiences of teaching both critical reflection and critical social theory to social work students in Australian universities, on the premise that both are indispensable in social work education as a democratic practice for ‘empowerment and liberation’. The chapter outlines a brief discussion of Castoriadis, his main ideas and the pedagogic dimensions of his philosophy before bringing the latter to bear on the authors’ teaching experiences

The renewal of critical social work (Introduction)

Social work is unfortunately not a term that most people associate with movements for social justice, human rights, environmental sustainability or significant social reforms...

Poulantzas' Strategic Analysis of Fascism

The term 'fascism' continues to be very much in currency in Philippines society. To the Filipino people, its meaning is often drawn from pained memory of wholesale deprivation of democratic rights and large-scale human rights abuses. Yet, to many, the fear of fascism has still to give way to a deeper understanding of this menace. This may hold true even among those belonging to the progressive movement