Dharman Jeyasingham
Biographic Data
| ID | 1665746 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dharman Jeyasingham |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dharman |
| FAMILY NAME | Jeyasingham |
| SIGNATURE | JEYASINGHAM D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2829-5029 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 67 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
A perfect storm
Child and family social workers’ practice has been transformed by the shift to digitally enabled hybrid working since the COVID19 pandemic. In this article, we use the analytical frame of sociomateriality to examine how digital technologies and material spaces in social workers’ homes and offices are shaping social workers’ communication and working relationships, and how hybrid working is blurring social workers’ work and non-work lives. This ar…
Exploring the spatial turn in social work
This article reviews the increasing amount of literature focusing on spatial issues in social work. It combines bibliometric and narrative approaches to analyse articles published between 2003 and 2022. The review focuses on publications in Latin America and the Global North, considering the issues addressed, spatial concepts through which they are understood, connections between issues discussed and between concepts used, and degrees of interact…
Hybrid and Digitally Mediated Practice in Child and Family Social Work
Hybrid working, where social workers frequently work from home and use digital technology to communicate with colleagues and people using services, has become common practice in UK social work. This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of child and family social work practice in three local authorities in England. The study involved interviews and observations of practice with twenty-one social workers, over the course of six to t…
How Does Race Work in Social Work Education? Everyday Racial Logics, Distinctions and Practices on Social Work Qualifying Programmes in England
This article presents findings from a study which explored the everyday ways race works on social work programmes in England. The study focused on how race was spoken about and conceptualised, how people were categorised and ordered according to race and the social interactions where race was understood by participants to be significant. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight social work lecturers and nineteen black social work stud…
Towards a Critical Pedagogy of Atmosphere in Social Work Education
In recent years, neoliberal government policies relating to higher education have diminished universities as spaces of learning and encounter with difference. This article discusses a teaching project that occurred on social work qualifying programmes in two universities in Britain and Spain. The project aimed to produce new opportunities for students to encounter and critically reflect on how power relations are produced and maintained in social…
El contra-mapeo en el grado de educación social
En los últimos años, las políticas neoliberales relativas a la educación superior han condicionado a las universidades a ser espacios mercantilistas, invisibilizando las diferencias étnico-culturales. Este artículo presenta una investigación de docencia universitaria realizada en el grado de educación social en una universidad española. El proyecto utilizó las contra-cartografías con el fin de visibilizar la dimensión cotidiana de las atmósferas …
Entanglements with offices, information systems, laptops and phones
Agile working (flexibility about where and when practitioners do their work) is increasingly common across public sector social work, but there has been little research about how practitioners engage with it or its impacts on communication between social workers, their colleagues and the families with whom they work. This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of a children’s safeguarding social work team in an English local authori…
Seeking Solitude and Distance from Others
Agile working (flexibility around practitioners’ roles and the location and time of work) is increasingly common across local authority social work in the UK but there is little evidence about the practices it entails, with the small amount of existing research concerned largely with its impact on office environments. This article presents findings from a qualitative exploratory study of eleven social workers’ practices and experiences when engag…
Soft, small, malleable, and slow
Child and family social workers in Britain are increasingly working in multidisciplinary settings such as Multi‐Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASHs). This article uses discourse analysis techniques to examine data from an ethnographic study of children's social workers and police officers working together in a MASH, considering the corporeal forms and movements that practitioners evoked in their talk about practice. Social workers used metaphors of s…
Social Work, Queer Theory and After
This article presents a genealogy of social work approaches to sexuality via critical examination of the relevance of queer and post-queer theory. The key tenets of queer theory are outlined before the authors go on to assess how social work has responded to this body of work. The authors offer some critical comments on social work’s engagement with queer theory before moving on to discuss a range of post-queer developments, focused on race, empi…
Closure, Affect, and the Continuing Queer Potential of Public Toilets
Across many Western countries, a substantial proportion of public toilets have either closed or been materially adapted in order to prevent their use for sex, while sexual interactions in public spaces generally, and toilets in particular, are policed more effectively than ever before. Despite these changes, this essay argues that public toilets continue to hold queer potential because of their intrinsic spatial qualities, their affective resonan…
Open spaces, supple bodies? Considering the impact of agile working on social work office practices
There has been a shift towards social workers in many areas of the UK being based in large open plan offices and working more flexibly and remotely in space. This approach is commonly referred to as ‘agile working’. The paper explores the impact of agile working on social workers' practices and experiences in office spaces. It discusses data from an ethnographic study of children's safeguarding social work teams in two locations. One team was bas…
The Production of Space in Children's Social Work
This paper summarises approaches to space in social work literature so far and shows that, while such work has developed important insights, it has not generally engaged with conceptualisations of space that have been developed in social and cultural geography. The paper introduces Henri Lefebvre's concept of a spatial dialectics, which has been highly influential in geography and which, the paper argues, enables a critical consideration of the w…
White Noise
Literature about whiteness and white identities has proliferated across the social sciences and humanities over recent years. However, there has so far been only a small amount of writing in social work, almost all concerned with social work education, which has attempted to make use of ideas developed in this body of literature. This paper summarises the major themes examined in the field of whiteness studies and discusses two broad critiques of…
A Clarification of 'White Noise' and Some Observations about Paul Michael Garrett's Response
In this issue, Paul Michael Garrett responds to my paper about social work education and whiteness studies, which was published in a previous issue of this journal (Jeyasingham, 2012). His response includes a number of misreadings of my article and therefore this short paper will begin by clarifying the original article's focus and main argument. It then moves on to make some observations about Garrett's stated criticisms of my paper and the ways…
Social Work with Lesbians and Gay Men * Social Work with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans People
Social Work Practice with Men at Risk
Building heteronormativity
This paper concerns changes in the spatial structure of British public toilets for men over the last ten years from secluded, indistinctly public/private spaces towards open, largely public structures. It examines a number of past and present toilet spaces in the British city of Manchester using spatial syntax analysis to consider how spaces have been adapted and policed differently in order to reduce opportunities for sex between men. It conside…
The Emotional Well‐Being of Young People Seeking Asylum in the UK
Promoting Young People's Sexual Health
Open spaces, supple bodies? Considering the impact of agile working on social work office practices
There has been a shift towards social workers in many areas of the UK being based in large open plan offices and working more flexibly and remotely in space. This approach is commonly referred to as ‘agile working’. The paper explores the impact of agile working on social workers' practices and experiences in office spaces. It discusses data from an ethnographic study of children's safeguarding social work teams in two locations. One team was bas…
White Noise
Literature about whiteness and white identities has proliferated across the social sciences and humanities over recent years. However, there has so far been only a small amount of writing in social work, almost all concerned with social work education, which has attempted to make use of ideas developed in this body of literature. This paper summarises the major themes examined in the field of whiteness studies and discusses two broad critiques of…
Building heteronormativity
This paper concerns changes in the spatial structure of British public toilets for men over the last ten years from secluded, indistinctly public/private spaces towards open, largely public structures. It examines a number of past and present toilet spaces in the British city of Manchester using spatial syntax analysis to consider how spaces have been adapted and policed differently in order to reduce opportunities for sex between men. It conside…
The Production of Space in Children's Social Work
This paper summarises approaches to space in social work literature so far and shows that, while such work has developed important insights, it has not generally engaged with conceptualisations of space that have been developed in social and cultural geography. The paper introduces Henri Lefebvre's concept of a spatial dialectics, which has been highly influential in geography and which, the paper argues, enables a critical consideration of the w…
The Emotional Well‐Being of Young People Seeking Asylum in the UK
Seeking Solitude and Distance from Others
Agile working (flexibility around practitioners’ roles and the location and time of work) is increasingly common across local authority social work in the UK but there is little evidence about the practices it entails, with the small amount of existing research concerned largely with its impact on office environments. This article presents findings from a qualitative exploratory study of eleven social workers’ practices and experiences when engag…
Promoting Young People's Sexual Health
Social Work, Queer Theory and After
This article presents a genealogy of social work approaches to sexuality via critical examination of the relevance of queer and post-queer theory. The key tenets of queer theory are outlined before the authors go on to assess how social work has responded to this body of work. The authors offer some critical comments on social work’s engagement with queer theory before moving on to discuss a range of post-queer developments, focused on race, empi…
Exploring the spatial turn in social work
This article reviews the increasing amount of literature focusing on spatial issues in social work. It combines bibliometric and narrative approaches to analyse articles published between 2003 and 2022. The review focuses on publications in Latin America and the Global North, considering the issues addressed, spatial concepts through which they are understood, connections between issues discussed and between concepts used, and degrees of interact…
Hybrid and Digitally Mediated Practice in Child and Family Social Work
Hybrid working, where social workers frequently work from home and use digital technology to communicate with colleagues and people using services, has become common practice in UK social work. This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of child and family social work practice in three local authorities in England. The study involved interviews and observations of practice with twenty-one social workers, over the course of six to t…
Soft, small, malleable, and slow
Child and family social workers in Britain are increasingly working in multidisciplinary settings such as Multi‐Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASHs). This article uses discourse analysis techniques to examine data from an ethnographic study of children's social workers and police officers working together in a MASH, considering the corporeal forms and movements that practitioners evoked in their talk about practice. Social workers used metaphors of s…
A Clarification of 'White Noise' and Some Observations about Paul Michael Garrett's Response
In this issue, Paul Michael Garrett responds to my paper about social work education and whiteness studies, which was published in a previous issue of this journal (Jeyasingham, 2012). His response includes a number of misreadings of my article and therefore this short paper will begin by clarifying the original article's focus and main argument. It then moves on to make some observations about Garrett's stated criticisms of my paper and the ways…
Promoting Young People's Sexual Health
The Emotional Well‐Being of Young People Seeking Asylum in the UK
Social Work Practice with Men at Risk
Building heteronormativity
This paper concerns changes in the spatial structure of British public toilets for men over the last ten years from secluded, indistinctly public/private spaces towards open, largely public structures. It examines a number of past and present toilet spaces in the British city of Manchester using spatial syntax analysis to consider how spaces have been adapted and policed differently in order to reduce opportunities for sex between men. It conside…
White Noise
Literature about whiteness and white identities has proliferated across the social sciences and humanities over recent years. However, there has so far been only a small amount of writing in social work, almost all concerned with social work education, which has attempted to make use of ideas developed in this body of literature. This paper summarises the major themes examined in the field of whiteness studies and discusses two broad critiques of…
A Clarification of 'White Noise' and Some Observations about Paul Michael Garrett's Response
In this issue, Paul Michael Garrett responds to my paper about social work education and whiteness studies, which was published in a previous issue of this journal (Jeyasingham, 2012). His response includes a number of misreadings of my article and therefore this short paper will begin by clarifying the original article's focus and main argument. It then moves on to make some observations about Garrett's stated criticisms of my paper and the ways…
Social Work with Lesbians and Gay Men * Social Work with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans People
Open spaces, supple bodies? Considering the impact of agile working on social work office practices
There has been a shift towards social workers in many areas of the UK being based in large open plan offices and working more flexibly and remotely in space. This approach is commonly referred to as ‘agile working’. The paper explores the impact of agile working on social workers' practices and experiences in office spaces. It discusses data from an ethnographic study of children's safeguarding social work teams in two locations. One team was bas…
The Production of Space in Children's Social Work
This paper summarises approaches to space in social work literature so far and shows that, while such work has developed important insights, it has not generally engaged with conceptualisations of space that have been developed in social and cultural geography. The paper introduces Henri Lefebvre's concept of a spatial dialectics, which has been highly influential in geography and which, the paper argues, enables a critical consideration of the w…
Social Work, Queer Theory and After
This article presents a genealogy of social work approaches to sexuality via critical examination of the relevance of queer and post-queer theory. The key tenets of queer theory are outlined before the authors go on to assess how social work has responded to this body of work. The authors offer some critical comments on social work’s engagement with queer theory before moving on to discuss a range of post-queer developments, focused on race, empi…
Closure, Affect, and the Continuing Queer Potential of Public Toilets
Across many Western countries, a substantial proportion of public toilets have either closed or been materially adapted in order to prevent their use for sex, while sexual interactions in public spaces generally, and toilets in particular, are policed more effectively than ever before. Despite these changes, this essay argues that public toilets continue to hold queer potential because of their intrinsic spatial qualities, their affective resonan…
Soft, small, malleable, and slow
Child and family social workers in Britain are increasingly working in multidisciplinary settings such as Multi‐Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASHs). This article uses discourse analysis techniques to examine data from an ethnographic study of children's social workers and police officers working together in a MASH, considering the corporeal forms and movements that practitioners evoked in their talk about practice. Social workers used metaphors of s…
Seeking Solitude and Distance from Others
Agile working (flexibility around practitioners’ roles and the location and time of work) is increasingly common across local authority social work in the UK but there is little evidence about the practices it entails, with the small amount of existing research concerned largely with its impact on office environments. This article presents findings from a qualitative exploratory study of eleven social workers’ practices and experiences when engag…
Entanglements with offices, information systems, laptops and phones
Agile working (flexibility about where and when practitioners do their work) is increasingly common across public sector social work, but there has been little research about how practitioners engage with it or its impacts on communication between social workers, their colleagues and the families with whom they work. This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of a children’s safeguarding social work team in an English local authori…
Towards a Critical Pedagogy of Atmosphere in Social Work Education
In recent years, neoliberal government policies relating to higher education have diminished universities as spaces of learning and encounter with difference. This article discusses a teaching project that occurred on social work qualifying programmes in two universities in Britain and Spain. The project aimed to produce new opportunities for students to encounter and critically reflect on how power relations are produced and maintained in social…
El contra-mapeo en el grado de educación social
En los últimos años, las políticas neoliberales relativas a la educación superior han condicionado a las universidades a ser espacios mercantilistas, invisibilizando las diferencias étnico-culturales. Este artículo presenta una investigación de docencia universitaria realizada en el grado de educación social en una universidad española. El proyecto utilizó las contra-cartografías con el fin de visibilizar la dimensión cotidiana de las atmósferas …
How Does Race Work in Social Work Education? Everyday Racial Logics, Distinctions and Practices on Social Work Qualifying Programmes in England
This article presents findings from a study which explored the everyday ways race works on social work programmes in England. The study focused on how race was spoken about and conceptualised, how people were categorised and ordered according to race and the social interactions where race was understood by participants to be significant. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight social work lecturers and nineteen black social work stud…
Exploring the spatial turn in social work
This article reviews the increasing amount of literature focusing on spatial issues in social work. It combines bibliometric and narrative approaches to analyse articles published between 2003 and 2022. The review focuses on publications in Latin America and the Global North, considering the issues addressed, spatial concepts through which they are understood, connections between issues discussed and between concepts used, and degrees of interact…
Hybrid and Digitally Mediated Practice in Child and Family Social Work
Hybrid working, where social workers frequently work from home and use digital technology to communicate with colleagues and people using services, has become common practice in UK social work. This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of child and family social work practice in three local authorities in England. The study involved interviews and observations of practice with twenty-one social workers, over the course of six to t…
A perfect storm
Child and family social workers’ practice has been transformed by the shift to digitally enabled hybrid working since the COVID19 pandemic. In this article, we use the analytical frame of sociomateriality to examine how digital technologies and material spaces in social workers’ homes and offices are shaping social workers’ communication and working relationships, and how hybrid working is blurring social workers’ work and non-work lives. This ar…
Sociology (19 works) · Political science (14 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (14 works) · Engineering (11 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (11 works) · Social Work (11 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Social science (7 works) · Gender Studies (6 works)