A Challenge to the Social Work Profession? The Rise of Socially Engaged Art and a Call to Radical Social Work.

Abstract

In this era of neoliberalism, social work in the United States is arguably overly professionalized and privatized, and has almost lost its activists roots in working for social justice. Radical social work rooted in macro-level community-based practice has been in crisis over the past three decades. The rise of socially engaged art has become more prominent in the United States even as social work has strayed away from its basic tenets such as community practice, advocacy, and social action. How should the social work profession interpret the rise of socially engaged art-already a trend in the art world-whose modality and purpose resembles radical social work? By comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences between radical social work and socially engaged art, this article examines the possibility of consilience between the two and the implications for the social work profession.