Suchergebnisse

In this seminal book, Krumer-Nevo introduces the Poverty-Aware Paradigm: a radical new framework for social workers and professionals working with and for people in poverty. The author defines the core components of the Poverty-Aware Paradigm, explicates its embeddedness in key theories in poverty, critical social work and psychoanalysis, and links it to diverse facets of social work practice. Providing a revolutionary new way to think about how social work can address poverty, she draws on the extensive application of the paradigm by social workers in Israel and across diverse poverty contexts to provide evidence for the practical advantages of integrating the Poverty-Aware Paradigm into social work practices across the globe

In this seminal book, Krumer-Nevo introduces the Poverty-Aware Paradigm: a radical new framework for social workers and professionals working with and for people in poverty. The author defines the core components of the Poverty-Aware Paradigm, explicates its embeddedness in key theories in poverty, critical social work and psychoanalysis, and links it to diverse facets of social work practice. Providing a revolutionary new way to think about how social work can address poverty, she draws on the extensive application of the paradigm by social workers in Israel and across diverse poverty contexts to provide evidence for the practical advantages of integrating the Poverty-Aware Paradigm into social work practices across the globe.

AbstractFacing the growing domination of neoliberalism and new public management in welfare services, social work scholars and practitioners are engaged in efforts to resist it. Using Schram's concept of radical incrementalism, this article describes and analyzes the development of the Poverty‐Aware Paradigm (PAP) in Israel in light of this resistance. The PAP is a critical framework that focuses on poverty as a central axis of the analysis of power relations between service users and social workers. Since 2015, when the Israeli welfare ministry adopted the PAP as a leading model for social work practice in the social service departments, the paradigm has had a surprisingly warm reception, and its implementation has been extended to the health and justice systems as well as to additional welfare ministry units. The article discusses these developments as examples of 'radical incrementalism' that is, strategies of resisting neoliberalism by collaborating with the establishment to 'bend' the power of the state to benefit marginalized groups. The article analyzes the contribution of specific elements of the PAP‐its dialectic process of bottom‐up and top‐down development; its discursive contribution; its organizational framework; and its training model. Finally, the article discusses the radical nature of the PAP.

'Back and forth autoethnographers gaze . . . outward on social and cultural aspects of their personal experience; then ... inward, exposing a vulnerable self that is moved by and may move through, refract, and resist cultural interpretations' (Ellis and Bochner, 2000: 739). The article presents an autoethnography in a format of four scenes and an epilogue. The scenes move from personal family memories, through memories of first professional encounters with a 'poor' woman client, and an encounter with volunteers from a human rights organization that fight to eradicate poverty, to an educational moment as a social work lecturer who guides her students in their search for their own way to work with people in poverty. The epilogue aims to connect the four scenes and to point at the personal, social, cultural, and political roots of a critical social work agenda regarding poverty.

English The voice of poor people is heard very often as mere noise, signifying nothing, or at best as reflecting knowledge which is irrelevant. This is to be seen in public attitudes and also in professional settings. This article exemplifies the contribution made by listening to knowledge possessed by people living in poverty. French La voix des personnes pauvres est le plus souvent entendue comme du bruit, sans signification, ou bien au mieux comme une réflexion du savoir, ce qui est inadéquat. On rencontre ces représentations aussi bien dans les attitudes du grand public que chez les professionnels. Cet article exemplifie la contribution qu'apporte l'écoute du savoir possédé par les gens vivant dans la pauvreté. Spanish La voz del pobre se oye a menudo como si fuera ruido, sin significado, o en el mejor de los casos como sabiduría inútil. Esto se ve no sólo en la actitud del público, sino también en los ambientes profesionales. Este trabajo es un ejemplo de la contribución derivada de escuchar la sabiduría de quienes viven en la pobreza.

This article describes a life-story study of 13 women living in deep and long-term poverty in Israel. Most of the women married at a young age and became mothers a short time thereafter. A combination of narrative and feminist-critical analysis shows that the women perceive marriage as a kind of 'fate', and as the critical stage of their lives. Most of them were coerced into marriage whether by economic circumstances or by their families. Nevertheless, their stories give evidence of an interior dialogue concerning marriage as an expression of self-definition and as a struggle to escape distress. The article gives some directions for the ' methodological awareness' necessary in such research and suggests some implications for social work.

Listening to the voices of poor women is a major goal of feminists who are dealing with the subject of poverty; however, its implementation is far from simple. Problems of power and ethics are enmeshed with the question of how to understand these voices and how to make them heard without exploiting or distorting them. This article counters these issues in presenting a feminist reading of Miriam—a woman living in poverty and social deprivation. The feminist reading of the story sheds light on Miriam's limited opportunities, the nature of her difficulties, and her struggle.

The capacity of women who live in deep and long-term economic and social deprivation to be helped has rarely been examined from the point of view of the women. This paper describes narrative research on the experience of receiving assistance as it is perceived by women who participated in the Yachdav program and were helped by it. Fourteen interviews were analyzed according to the narrative approach and grounded theory. Three patterns of help reception were revealed: (a) The Calming Pattern, in which help is perceived as the possibility to escape—to relax and calm down, (b) The Empowerment Pattern, in which help is perceived as enabling the women to learn, to receive, and strengthen, and (c) The Re-Biography Pattern, in which assistance is perceived as bringing about a new self-awareness. These findings suggest the desirability of reconsidering presuppositions concerning the needs of this population and its capacity to be helped. The results also point to implications for practice and further research.

This article documents the encounters between a researcher and interviewees who were women living in extreme poverty and social exclusion. It presents these encounters as taking place in what I call an arena of 'Othering'. The arena of Othering is a sphere of power relationships in which each participant defines both herself and the Other. In this arena two reciprocal social images interact, one is perceived in social terms as more powerful, the other as inferior. The article analyses the effects of the dynamic of Othering upon the research process as demonstrated in the interviewing, in the interpretation of the data and in the writing of the research. The article also suggests some possible strategies to resist Othering.

Arab-Palestinian families have one of the highest poverty rates in Israel. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding this population from a social work perspective. This article presents an analysis of 64 supervision sessions held with Arab-Palestinian social workers with the aim of identifying context-specific knowledge on the barriers service users face in their daily lives. Our findings point to three types of barriers: economic, sociopolitical, and cultural/political. The article relates to the intersections of these barriers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract This article presents a position paper on Israel's benefits system. It was produced in the framework of a participatory action research with the collaboration of welfare services users and social welfare policy practitioners, academics, social practitioners, and social activists. Some 78 persons living in poverty, from various population groups, were asked, in group settings, to describe their experiences with the benefit system and services, their coping strategies, their perceptions and attitudes towards these services, and their recommendations for ways to improve them. The position paper which emerged from this process served as the basis for discussions between service users, social welfare policy practitioners, researchers, social activists and social practitioners at an academic conference. Issues such as benefits cuts, eligibility, and definitions of poverty are discussed and recommendations are presented.