Wilkinson I (2019) ‘Social Suffering and Public Value: A Spur to New Projects of Social Inquiry and Social Care’, in A. Lindgreen, N. Koenig-Lewis, M. Kitchener, J. Brewer, M. Moore and T. Meynhardt (eds) Public Value: Deepening, Enriching, and Broadening the Theory and Practice, London: Routledge

Abstract

This chapter provides a review of contemporary research and writing on ‘social suffering’. It highlights some of the contemporary intellectual and political developments that have inspired social scientists to treat manifestations of ‘the problem of suffering’ as a key concern. It also notes some of the ways in which this might construed a marking a return to ‘the social question’ of the nineteenth century. It is argued that here the conduct of social research is informed by an earlier ‘classical’ example of critical pragmatism championed by figures such as Jane Addams, W.E.B du Bois and Albion Small. This is directed by the understanding that social science should be committed to projects of ameliorative social reform. Where a focus is brought to problems of social suffering, the pedagogy of caregiving is deemed a necessary part of the processes through which we might apprehend the meaning and value of human life in social terms