International social work or social work internationalism? Radical social work in global perspective

Abstract

Radical social work aimed to provide a series of arguments for, and about, radical social work in Britain. It did not look at social-work engagement beyond Britain's shores. International social work attempts to look at a range of social problems that social work can address, at local ‘indigenous’ practices and the way(s) in which they can be incorporated into professional and regulated modes of social-work delivery. This chapter argues that international social work has an ambiguous history. First, it examines one aspect of social work's less-savoury history: the intersection of post-World War II international social work, the Marshall Plan, and the United States' imperial interests in post-war Greece. The chapter then discusses the distinction between ‘official social work’ and ‘popular social work’, the formative years of international social work, the impact of imperialism on social work, and social-work internationalisation versus internationalism.