Can social work afford to remain apolitical in the age of neoliberalism and managerialism discourse at the expense of social justice, challenging inequalities and empowerment of its recipients: dilemmas and considerations for north and south global worlds?

Historically social work has advocated the principles and values of human rights, social justice, tackling inequalities while empowering individuals and communities by liberating them to enhance their well-being, while enabling interactions with economic, political and social environments. (IASSW, 2001, 2014).

This Paper will argue:
• How the adoption of neoliberalism discourse has thwarted and sucked social work into its unsympathetic discourse at the detriment of social work recipients who continue to live in relative and absolute poverty.
• And consider how social work in both global worlds can engage effectively in radical social justice and mobilise itself as a powerful profession which challenges the status quo (Mullay, 2007, Ritzer, 2008 cited in Brady et al, 2014, p 37) while making its principles and values a reality for its recipients.
• The need to challenge welfare systems of the global north that encourages dependency and demonise recipients without significantly changing people’s social and economic circumstances.
• The need for social work to challenge the complacency in poverty eradication and meaningful practices by global south states while recognising the needs of both urban and rural recipients post-colonial era.
• Importance of social work to encourage and mobilise its recipients to challenge the unjust systems and practices globally that reinforces inequalities.
• The need to consider the impact of the deprofessionalisation of social work and the importance of the profession to remobilise itself as a meaningful agent of social change and offer meaningful critical social work globally. (Stepney, 2006)

1. Brady, S.R, Schoeneman, A.C. and Sawyer, J. (2014) Critiquing and Analyzing the Effects of Neoliberalism on Community Organizing: Implications and Recommendations for Practitioners and Educators. Journal of Social Action in Counselling and Psychology. 6, (1), pp. 36-60
2. Stepney, P. (2006) ‘Mission Impossible: Critical Practice in Social Work’. British Journal of Social Work, 36, (8), pp. 1289-1307