Time, Temporality and Child Welfare

Notes on the Materiality and Malleability of Time(s)

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4355931
AutoresSusan White (0000-0003-1249-8603, autor de correspondencia)
Año1998
Volumen7
Número1
Páginas55-74
Fecha de publicación1998-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaTime & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0961-463X • E-ISSN: 1461-7463
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0961463x98007001003
OpenAlexW1992208546
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas14
Referencias citadas18

This article presents data from a recently completed ethnographic study conducted in a British metropolitan social services department between 1993 and 1995. It argues that issues of time and temporality have central, but hitherto relatively neglected, analytic importance in understanding contemporary child welfare. It contends that rational `time(s)' may be classified both as `ordering' phenomena and as artefacts of social workers' situated ordering practices. So, while organizational rhythms form temporal patterns, social workers also make considerable use of rational time(s) in the construction of various types of accounts, particularly those of an `exonerative' nature. These references serve not only to preserve institutional realities, but also function as moral accounts, which maintain the consistency of the social workers' `altruistic' professional discourse during the course of morally tainted rationing activities

Consistency (knowledge bases · Economics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Function (biology · Health care · Metropolitan area · Political science · Positive economics · Rationing · Situated · Social science · Social Welfare · Sociology · Temporality · Welfare · Anthropology · Child Welfare and Adoption · History · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Social Work Education and Practice