Social Work and Countering Violent Extremism in Sweden and the UK

Social Work in Europe, is now being tasked with managing the “problems” of terrorism, i.e supporting those affected by terrorist attacks, managing returnees affiliated with Terrorist groups in the Middle East, or, as will be discussed here, identifying those at risk from radicalisation and extremism. Both Britain and Sweden have Counter-Terrorism policies, but recent developments in both countries, have made it a statutory requirement for social workers, to work within such policies. This paper seeks to explore the policies in both countries utilising a comparative approach, to consider the similarities in not only policy and practice, but also in the ethical consequences such policies pose for social workers across Europe. The exploration considers; the extent to which anti-radicalisation policies influence social work practices in Sweden and the UK and how they might undermine social work as a human rights profession. The results indicate that anti-radicalisation policies run the risk of reducing social work to become a ‘policing profession’ practicing social control. This has substantial consequences for social work and its global ethics, which should be considered and struggled against by social workers committed to principles of social justice and human rights

The Butler affair and the geopolitics of identity

In the wake of the Global War on Terror, Judith Butler has written of the 'precarity' of life, of the inevitable vulnerability of one's life in the face of the actions of strangers. Refusing to accept this, the United States has developed a form of nationalism that claims invulnerability for its citizens while treating as expendable the lives of distant others who even unwittingly associate with those who threaten the US homeland. Butler has extended this set of criticisms to Israel's policy towards Palestinian people and in doing so has been criticised as anti-Semitic. She has engaged with these questions about Jewish identity, nationalism, and toleration through an engagement with writers of the Jewish diaspora, developing what we may describe as a geopolitical perspective on identity. The value of such a perspective was given ironic point by the public controversy over the award to Butler of the Adorno Prize in 2012. This paper argues also that in responding to the biopolitics of the Global War on Terror, Butler has elaborated on some of the geopolitical bases of identity and in doing so has illuminated the academic politics of the current Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign called for by many institutions of Palestinian civil society