The ethical-political project of social work in Brazil

Abstract

This article sets out to characterise the ethical-political project behind social workers in Brazil, a practical-critical profession strategy that has been developing since the late 1970s, coinciding with the return to democracy in the country. I will offer a brief assessment of the current situation after two decades of neoliberalism and conservatism across the world, and which in Brazil was expressed in the counter-reform of the state in the 1990s and in policies that remain in place to this day. I will try to show the impact, difficulties and challenges posed by these policies for social workers, since the choices that the profession has made in the course of its recent history could not be immune to the conservative tide and found very concrete expression in the resistance to the hegemonic ideas.