Identity Work through Support and Control

Bibliographic Data

ID12901952
AuthorsKerstin Svensson (0000-0003-2503-0444, Parsons (United States), corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume3
Issue3
Pages234-248
Publication date2009-10-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthics and Social Welfare (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-6535 • E-ISSN: 1749-6543
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17496530903209410
OpenAlexW2024030659
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited15

This article aims to understand how social workers and volunteers, people who see themselves as wanting to ‘do good’, justify the controlling actions they carry out in their everyday practice. They work in organizations that control and regulate the lives of people, while at the same time striving to carry out supportive actions. How, then, do they see themselves, their role and their identity? This is explored through narratives from social workers and volunteers in three organizations in Sweden: victim support, a social services team working with people with drug problems and a probation service. From the narratives of social workers, volunteers and their clients, collected by the author for previous studies, different ways of coping with ‘caring power’, the combination of care and control, are revealed. Both social workers’ and volunteers’ self-identity is understood to be associated primarily with their wish to see themselves as good people, and far less with their actions in the name of their organization. When control is implicit, as in victim support, social workers and volunteers can ignore the controlling aspects of their role. When care and control are obviously combined, as in the social services, they split their understanding so that the individual social worker is regarded as being good, while the organization represents the controlling function. In the probation service, where control is central, social workers and volunteers rewrite their controlling function so that even here they act as good people

Control (management · Coping (psychology · Identity (music · Management · Narrative · Political science · Power (physics · Public relations · Social control · Social group · Social identity theory · Social science · Sociology · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Work Education and Practice · Social Work