Int J Soc Welfare 2004: 13: 297– 303 © Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA 297 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE ISSN 1369-6866 Morley C. Critical reflection in social work: a response to globalisation? Int J Soc Welfare 2004: 13: 297– 303 © Blackwell Publishing, 2004. This article presents a reflective theoretical deconstruction of my practice with disempowered human service workers. Spe- cifically, it presents a case study of how critical reflection was fostered amongst a group of practitioners in Geelong, a regional Victorian town in Australia. This models how a critical postmodern analysis provided a framework for over- coming entrenched power dynamics and structural barriers in a particular context and at a particular point in time. It des- cribes and analyses the content of this work in terms of its significance and implications for responding to the impact of globalisation on this group, which was undermining the effectiveness of their social work practice. Christine Morley Deakin University, Geelong, Australia Blackwell Publishing Ltd Oxford, UK IJSW International Journal of Socical Welfare 1369-6866 © Blackwell Publishers Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare 2004 2004 13 1 000 Original Articles Critical reflection in social work Morley Critical reflection in social work: a response to globalisation? 1 Key words: critical reflection, social work, globalisation Christine Morley, School of Health and Social Development, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria 3217, Australia E-mail: morleyc@deakin.edu.au Accepted for publication May 17, 2003 The globalised context: a critical modernist perspective From a modernist perspective, the impact of globalised economies and technologies has meant that certain groups have, and will continue to, become increasingly marginalised. As social workers and social work edu- cators, perhaps our problem is not with globalisation per se, but with the fact that as a phenomenon, it exacerbates the effects of capitalism, patriarchy and colonisation. Consequently, many social workers feel increasingly powerless to implement the critical values that inspire our practice. What are the possibilities to respond to the challenges presented by globalisation to social justice, citizenship, democracy, equity and human rights? And how can social work education prepare practitioners to continue to facilitate social change in a political environment that feels increasingly regressive and conservative? Critical reflection involves deconstruc- ting dominant discourses, and our own often inadvertent participation in them, to highlight our internal agency to challenge and change inequitable power relations and structures (Fook, 2002). This involves particular assumptions about the nature of knowledge and power, which constructs change as being possible through reconstructing rather than inverting dominant power disparities and hierarchies. It is my contention that critical social work, with its ethical commitment to creating and maintaining the conditions for equitable societies, needs to assume a leadership role in formulating creative responses to these issues. Modernist analyses suggest that globalisation is having a profound impact on the transformative capacity of critical social work to produce emancipatory change and social justice. The fact that our world is endemic with war, ongoing acts of terrorism, atrocities based on ethnic and religious difference, environmental degradation and exploitation, increased global poverty and Third-World debt, and escalating inequities between dominant and socially marginalised groups (Drevdahl, 1999; McDonald, 1996), reflects the global redistribution of political and economic power and resources. This has increased Western, industrialised countries’ monopoly of technolo- gical, financial, communication and weaponry resources, and within this context, government power is eroding and democratic control over policy is being lost, in response to the increasing power of transnational corporations and international banks. As Ife (1997: 18) explains, ‘. . . governments are severely constrained in their policy options by the power of transnational capital. A policy decision which threatens or displeases “the markets” can lead to an instant flight of capital, downgrading of the nation’s credit rating, and ruin for the national economy’. Consequently, the policy context has witnessed economic rationalism and corporate managerialism become the dominant agendas since the 1980s. This has paralleled the deregulation of industry and banking, the diminishing of protectionist policies and the relin- quishment of the welfare state (Bulbeck, 1994). As Ife (1997: 7) comments, ‘The erosion of public services, privatization, corporatisation, tendering, contracting out, quasi-markets, rolling back the state, and so on are now so familiar they scarcely need comment’. 1 Revised version of a paper presented to the Congress of the International Association of Schools of Social Work, ‘Social Work Education and Citizenship in a Globalising World’, July 15–19, 2002, Montpellier, France.