This performance ethnography presents a multi-vocal dialog of a group of social workers and social work students dealing with personal and professional issues of critical social work. Performance ethnography is an innovative qualitative research method that uses a dramatic medium to bridge between theory and personal experiences and between research, teaching, and learning. Through personal writing and a discussion of an intervention story, we present our experience with critical social work. The play-like structure presents the group dialog as an important medium for encouraging critical reflexivity and for reviving theoretical critical social work concepts with personal and practical meanings.
AdamsR.DominelliL.PayneM. (2009). On being critical in social work. In AdamsR.DominelliL.PayneM. (Eds.), Critical practice in social work (pp. 1-12). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
2.
AlexanderB. K. (2005). Performance ethnography: The re-enacting and inciting of culture. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. S. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative inquiry (3rd ed., pp. 411-441). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
3.
BaileyR.BrakeM. (1975). Introduction: Social work in the welfare state. In BaileyR.BrakeM. (Eds.), Radical social work (pp. 1-12). New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
4.
CareyM.FosterV. (2011). Introducing “deviant” social work: Contextualising the limits of radical social work whilst understanding (fragmented) resistance within the social work labour process. British Journal of Social Work, 41, 576-593.
5.
DenzinN. K. (2003) Performance Ethnography: Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
6.
DiversiM.MoreiraC. (2009). Betweener talk: Decolonizing knowledge production, pedagogy, and praxis. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
7.
DominelliL.CamplingJ. (2002). Anti-oppressive social work theory and practice. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
8.
FergusonH. (2003). Outline of a critical best practice perspective on social work and social care. British Journal of Social Work, 33, 1005-1024.
9.
FinleyS. (2008). Arts-based inquiry: Performing revolutionary pedagogy. In DenzinN. K.LincolnY. S. (Eds.), Collecting and interpreting qualitative materials (pp. 95-114). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
10.
FookJ.GardnerF. (2007). Practising critical reflection: A resource handbook. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.
GarrettP. M. (2013). Social work and social theory: Making connections. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.
13.
GreenR.GregoryR.MasonR. (2006). Professional distance and social work: Stretching the elastic?Australian Social Work, 59, 449-461.
14.
HekmanS. (1997). Truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited. Signs, 22, 341-365.
15.
HickS.PozzutoR. (2005). Introduction: Towards “becoming” a critical social worker. In HickS.FookJ.PozzutoR. (Eds.), Social work: A critical turn (pp. ix-xviii). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Thompson Education.
16.
JamesC.EsteD.BernardW.BenjaminA.LloydB.TurnerT. (2010). Race and wellbeing: The lives, hopes, and activism of African Canadians. Black Point, Nova Scotia, Canada: Fernwood Publishing.
17.
Krumer-NevoM. (2005). Listening to “life knowledge”: A new research direction in poverty studies. International Journal of Social Welfare, 14, 99-106.
18.
LavaletteM. (2011). Introduction. In LavaletteM. (Ed.), Radical social work today: Social work at the crossroads (pp. 1-10). Bristol, UK: Policy Press.
19.
MoreiraC. (2011). Tales of Conde: Autoethnography and the body politics of performative writing. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 11, 586-595.
20.
MoreiraC. (2013). Mother is not brown: The “unmarked” performance of keeping the hair straight or the unpolitical racial performance of mother’s hair. Qualitative Inquiry, 19, 547-551.
21.
RoseS. M. (2000). Reflections on empowerment-based practice. Social Work, 45, 403-412.
22.
RossiterA. (2011). Unsettled social work: The challenge of Levinas’ ethics. British Journal of Social Work, 41, 980-995.
23.
RuchG. (2007). Reflective practice in contemporary child-care social work: The role of containment. British Journal of Social Work, 37, 659-680.
24.
SakamotoI.PitnerR. O. (2005). Use of critical consciousness in anti-oppressive social work practice: Disentangling power dynamics at personal and structural levels. British Journal of Social Work, 35, 435-452.
25.
SpryT. (2010). Call it swing: A jazz blues autoethnography. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 10, 271-282.
26.
TurbettC. (2013). Radical social work in the frontline: A survival toolkit for the UK. Critical and Radical Social Work, 1, 225-232.
27.
Weiss-GalI.LevinL.Krumer-NevoM. (2012). Applying critical social work in direct practice with families. Child & Family Social Work, 19, 55-64.
