Phenomenological Understandings of Child & Family Social Work in England: Provisional imperatives and infinite responsibilities

This PhD by publication submission comprises six peer reviewed journal articles and a thematic essay that take a critical perspective on social work’s use of theory derived from sociological and psychological perspectives. This thesis will draw upon phenomenology to make the case that social work should focus, first of all, on the lived experience of the people who use its services and to prioritise the meanings they make of their experiences prior to applying external theoretical 'professional' meanings. Theorists such as Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Emmanuel Levinas offer a theoretical framework that sees the human condition as embodied in the social world and therefore consisting of plural accounts of experience that do not easily lend themselves to oversimplified ontic descriptions of the social or psychological realms that claim to explain the commonalities of 'humanity'. I will argue that adopting this position allows social work to develop a more ethical mode of practice based on Levinasian ideas about ethics preceding knowledge and extending that argument into provisional, rather than categorical, imperatives and assuming an infinite responsibility that extends beyond completion of social work ‘interventions’. Hence social work’s need to develop and build theory ideographically rather than nomothetic application and the need for social workers to be theorists rather than theoreticians.