Maktrelationer och normaliseringsprocesser i välfärdsstaten

Abstract

This article argues for the need of intersectional analyses within the field of social work in Sweden. Intersectionality offers an important theoretical tool for more complex understandings of power because it takes its point of departure in an understandingof power as multidimensional, where gender/sexuality, ethnicity/" race" and class are constitutive and bearing principals. Intersectional analyses aim to understand how these dimensions are created and changed in relation to each other and how they interact with specific gender orders in specific contexts. Social work is created and maintained through discourses that structures institutions, actors, and practices. This paper provides examples of how, based on an overview of recent research, social problems and social deviance are created as well as normalized within social work praxis, in institutional care and treatmentand/orsupportive interventions. This research shows that both social problems and interventions of the welfare state are constituted through the interaction of social dimensions such as gender/sexuality, ethnicity/" race" and class. Finally, the paper suggests that there are serious material and social consequences for individuals who come into contact with social work institutions. The absence of intersectional analyses means that both researchers and practitioners lack important knowledge of how ethnic and racial discrimination interact with gender oppression. Intersectional analyses can be part of creating a subversive strategy against those power asymmetries that maintain inequality, injustice and oppression.