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The ‘Whalebone’ in the (Social Work) ‘Corset’? Notes on Antonio Gramsci and Social Work Educators

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 28; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02615470802256402

1470-1227

Paul Michael Garrett,

Critical Theory and Philosophy

Abstract The writings of the Italian philosopher and political activist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) are neglected in social work, but his complex body of work might aid the profession's understanding in the early twenty‐first century. Social work education, specifically, may have much to gain from Gramsci's theorisation. The focus of this article—perhaps, something of an introduction of Gramsci—will be on his approach to Marxism and his ideas related to 'common sense', intellectuals and intellectuality. It will be maintained that Gramsci's contributions on these questions could contribute to social workers' critical reflection during a period of neoliberal inspired transformations. Keywords: MarxismCommon SenseIntellectualsCritical ReflectionSocial Work Practices Notes 1. The Prison Notebooks (PN) comprising 33 exercise books were written between 8 February 1929 and June 1935. Readers new to Gramsci can find English translations of his writings in Bellamy (Citation1994), Forgacs (Citation1988), Hoare (Citation1988), and Hoare & Nowell Smith (Citation2005). Jones (Citation2006) provides a short, accessible introduction to Gramsci laying particular emphasis on his conceptualisations for cultural studies. The playwright Trevor Griffiths (Citation2007) featured a dramatised Antonio Gramsci in his Occupations which was first performed in 1970. 2. Gramsci had been dead for 20 years before the first small selection of his writings was published in English. However, his work was, for a period, very influential across sections of the Left in Britain (Nairn, Citation1964; Williams, Citation1973; Hall et al., Citation1978). It was, though, the administrations of Margaret Thatcher (May 1979–November 1990) which triggered particular interest in Gramscian approaches. Indeed, the concept 'Thatcherism' and the attempt to comprehend the 'great moving right show' was underpinned by an application of Gramsci's theorising to the British social formation during a period of radical transformation (Hall, Citation1993). A key figure in this regard was Stuart Hall who was influential in bringing a Gramscian perspective to cultural studies (Hall & Jacques, Citation1989). He also made a number of important interventions in the British Communist Party publication, Marxism Today: calling, for example, for those on the Left to think 'problems in a Gramscian way' (Hall, Citation1987, p. 227). More recently Hall (Citation1996, Citation1998, Citation2003) has utilised some of Gramsci's formulations to better understand New Labour (see also Finlayson, Citation2003). John Clarke, an associate of Hall's from the late‐1970s, has also brought a distinctly Gramscian inflected perspective to the politics of social policy (Clarke, Citation2004; Clarke et al., Citation2007). 3. Zgymunt Bauman, whose sociology has been imported into social work following his break with Marxism, has maintained 'Gramsci immunized me once and for all against brain‐paralyzing bacchilli of systems, structures, functions, billiard‐ball models of the agent and mirror models of the subject's minds, determined past and preordained future' (in Beilharz, Citation2001, p. 334; see also Ferguson, Citation2008). 4. Gramsci made specific comments on intellectuals of the rural type and some of his comments may continue to have contemporary resonance, outside Italy, in small towns and rural settings. Richard Pugh (Citation2007), for example, has produced an interesting article on social work in rural settings which could, perhaps, be reinterpreted and enriched using a Gramscian perspective. 5. For example, in her review into the status of social care services, published in April 2007, Dame Denise Platt drew attention to a criticism of the British Journal of Social Work with its 'small readership' and articles that are 'tortuously theoretical and get nowhere' (Platt, Citation2007, p. 17; see also Department of Health, Citation2007). This could, of course, be interpreted as a question of subjective preference or taste. However, it might also be argued that this criticism, from a primary definer of the purpose and intent of social work and social care, was actually targeted at the journal's willingness to engage with quite abstract theoretical and political questions.