Summary

This symposium is composed by two conferences that aim to present a SW non-dominant episteme developed in Mexico throughout a period of thirty-five years, that has constituted itself as one of the main referents across LATAM for practicing and thinking about contemporary SW, after the reconceptualization movement. It relates to the Joint Conference on SWSD 2024 central theme, because it will present a disciplinary proposal in which the professional action of SW falls onto the relational forms as social configurations resulting from myriad types of relationships created by subjects who weave together every day social processes, such as: equality/inequality; competition/ cooperation; exclusion/ inclusion; violence/ solidarity; integration/disintegration; liberty/submission, without leaving no one behind. Moreover, it relates to theme number 7, because the SW epistemology that will be presented in the symposium has to do with introducing an alternative logic from the dominant that integrates knowledge recovered from professional practice.  At the same time, it articulates a comprehensive common language for our profession while considering that neoliberalism, capitalism, and socio–economic models imported by the global north onto the global south, have resulted in differentiated social dynamics within global societies that tend to spread narratives that generate enemies while establishing violence as a dominant form of relating to each other. In that sense, the symposium also relates to theme number 10, because it will address the task of SW faced with the global problem of social violence, aiming to provide a useful benchmark for practitioners when intervening within contexts of violence, towards a social co-existence of solidarity.The desired outcome is to create awareness on the fact that even when SW has been spoken about and done in so many myriad ways, it is still possible to build from our differences and to identify unity in the ontological dispersion of the profession/discipline itself.

Keywords (separate with commas)

non-dominant episteme of social work, international social work, social intervention against violence, social coexistence of solidarity, task of social work.

Write here the title of the Symposium and the name of who coordinates it:

Shantal Gámiz Vidiella, Symposium Convener  Panel 1. About Social Work The region of LATAM went through a deep politicization period during the era of SW reconceptualization. In consequence, SW practitioners learned tough but fruitful lessons about how SW as a profession/discipline, could subsist in the disciplinary field of social sciences: not as a subordinate to other professions but concerned with the construction of specific conceptual, historical, and methodological elements. As such is the case of Mexico with Tello’s non-dominant episteme of SW which should be understood as an invitation for different Traditional/Postcolonial/Decolonial/Indigenous/Emancipatory approaches of SW to try and find points of agreement on what it is that SW studies as a profession and what it does as a discipline. In this panel, Tello will explain why SW can only be a comprehensive theoretical construction if its framework of knowledge is constructed through a transdisciplinary outlook, with a complex thought, and based on a specific epistemology that is capable of articulate knowledge from the point at which a segment of reality is being approached. In that sense, the panel will be about a new SW episteme, that reflects on its task, and it is functional in differentiating its specificity. On that note, Tello will share the conclusions of her latest academic publication[1] that include the ontological-theoretical and methodological benchmarks of her SW non-dominant episteme. Therefore, in this panel, the author will delve on her own SW Theory and talk about how to develop intervention strategies and models from such a SW episteme. It is worth mentioning that the guest speaker of this panel has reflected on the knowledge presented on this panel and discussed it with numerous colleagues, academics, and professionals in the field of social work, as well as with students for over the past thirty-five years and that her latest academic publication reintroduces, specifies, and summarizes the results about social work that she has gathered and disseminated across LATAM.   Panel 2. Social Work Towards a Social Co-existence of SolidarityFully understanding the non-dominant episteme of SW that is being presented in the symposium, implies that social workers should be capable of positioning themselves in the subject’s social relations, or with the social processes (i.e., equality/inequality; competition/ cooperation; exclusion/ inclusion; violence/ solidarity; integration/disintegration; liberty/submission) as the point in which they intervene, and not in the product of such relational forms. Even further, thinking about SW from such a non-dominant episteme also implies that social workers know that they are going to unleash processes of change, but that it is not their responsibility as a profession to totally modify society. Instead, their professional practice contributes to the construction of autonomous subjects with socio-historic responsibility that enable solidarity co-existence. Thus, it implies that social workers have clarity on key concepts conceived by Tello’s such as, violence, spaces of safety, social processes, among others. In this panel, Vidiella will talk about why Tello’s non-dominant episteme should be seriously considered into the international debate of SW as well as how it can inform various SW Traditional/Postcolonial/Decolonial/Indigenous/Emancipatory approaches, such as Māori Indigenous SW, Ubuntu as a SW pan-African concept and Sewpaul’s Emancipatory SW theory. On that account, the guest speaker will also present her latest academic publication[2] which delves into the task of international social work against violence. Therefore, Vidiella will present her contributions to Nelia Tello's theory and will delve into the key concepts to strengthen the disciplinary limits of social work and the specialized knowledge that practitioners bring when they join multidisciplinary teams that work against violence: Towards a social so-existence of solidarity. It is worth mentioning that the guest speaker of this panel has maintained a twelve-year relationship with Tello; on a personal basis, as a student, and later, as an apprentice, wherein she has had the opportunity to learn and discuss in-depth the non-dominant episteme that will be presented in the symposium.  [1] Tello, N. (2021) Social Work. National Autonomous University of Mexico [UNAM]. CDMX, Mexico.  [2]  Vidiella, S. (2022) International Social Work against Violence. [Master Thesis, Makerere University]. Kampala, Uganda.