INFORMAL AND FORMAL SOCIAL
WORK AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL
DOMINATION IN THE CONTEXT
OF FINLAND AND MOZAMBIQUE
Sanni Kuikka
Essay
April 2014
Social problems and social
work in Sub-Saharan Africa
Social work and sustainable
development
North-South-South Collaboration
Discipline of Social Services
2
Sisällys
1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 3
2 WHAT IS FORMAL OR INFORMAL SOCIAL WORK? ........................................ 4
2.1 Contractually based social work in Finland ......................................................... 5
2.2 Contractually based social work in Mozambique ................................................ 6
3 EPISTEMOLOGICAL DOMINATION IN SOCIAL WORK ................................... 8
3.1 In Mozambique .................................................................................................... 8
3.2 In Finland ............................................................................................................. 9
4 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 11
REFERENCES................................................................................................................ 13
3
1
INTRODUCTION
During 31.3.-3.4.2014 I participated in a seminar about social problems and social work
in sub-Saharan Africa, organized by the North-South-South Collaboration as a part of
teacher exchange program. Lecturers from different universities in South Africa,
Mozambique and Tanzania had travelled to Tampere and prepared presentations concerning social work issues from different perspectives in their home countries. Besides
the lecturers, the participants in the seminar were interdisciplinary students from various
countries in Europe, Africa and Asia.
During the seminar the lecturers and the students from different countries shared and
compared their knowledge and experience about social problems, social work and societies. A lot of differences occurred but a common definer was that whether you come
from a less-developed country or a welfare country, social problems occur and there are
people who study them and try to find possible solutions.
The concept of formal and informal social work occurred and it opened up a theme
about what is in fact formal or informal social work and how is social work done in different countries or areas. In this essay I present some perspectives to formal and informal social work. I reflect on the history and present situations in Finland and Mozambique in the context of contractually based social work.
The situation in Mozambique leads the theme to epistemological issues. I introduce the
reader to the theme of epistemological dominance and present a social work perspective
from both Mozambique and Finland in the context of it. In conclusion I reflect on the
meaning of epistemological dominance and structural oppression.
4
2
WHAT IS FORMAL OR INFORMAL SOCIAL WORK?
The concept pair formal and informal social work can be defined in different ways. It
can be seen that social work professionals use both formal and informal social work
methods in their work. But it can also be seen as a concept pair of formal social work
and informal care: social work professionals are doing formal social work as people
with no social work education are taking care of other people, thus providing informal
care.
Kinnunen (2012, 57) defines the concept pair as being different kind of methods a professional social worker uses in their work in Finland. She claims formal social work
methods consist of theoretical and empirical information, which can be expressed and
studied verbally. On the contrast informal social work methods consist of practical information and personal knowledge, which can only be obtained through experience in
working with people and listening to their stories.
Anttonen (2008, 13) serves another view on the concept pair. Through her European
wide comparing study in formal and informal resources in caring for the elderly, she
makes the point that informal social work or informal care exists in communities, where
people – traditionally women – take care of their families and relatives. Her study
shows that the increase of women in paid employment in Europe during the last 30
years has decreased informal care resources in homes and communities, and discusses
about the financial aspects of informal care nowadays.
PhD Miguel Marrengula (2014) offered yet another point of view at the lecture seminar.
He claims that formal social work is defined by some kind of contractual basis and the
worker usually gets a material compensation whereas informal social work enhances the
social capital of the community without any professional social work institution and the
worker may not get any material compensation. This means that informal social work
can be produced by friends, families or for example voluntary junior football team
coach.
In the context of Finland and Mozambique, the traditions and the development of social
work differ a lot and contractually based social work means different things. In the fol-
5
lowing I present contractually based social work in the context of Finland and Mozambique.
2.1
Contractually based social work in Finland
In Finland, there are two historical institutions in the field of social work: municipal
social work and church social work. The Finnish legislation nowadays states that church
social work focuses on helping those in greatest need and who are not being helped in
any other way, as municipal social work focuses on promoting and sustaining the social
security and ability to function of a person, a family and a community. (Paajanen 2008,
4.)
In 1865 the municipal government regulation was announced and municipalities “were
born” in Finland. Pauper care previously being the responsibility of the church, in 1879
was moved to municipal governance by Pauper Care Regulation. Liberalism promoted
the idea of individual self-reliance and responsibility in contrast to former societal care,
while the amount of those in need increased. (Paajanen 2008, 4.)
Municipal social work has roots in charity organizations established and upheld by
women to help children and women in need from 1840’s onwards. Municipal Pauper
Care Governments were established from 1879 and run by officials. The charity organizations helped the Municipal Governments to maintain the lawful care of the paupers
and worked voluntarily. Their amount of work continuously increased due to urbanization in Finland. In the beginning of the 20th century more legislation was drawn to define social care in municipalities. Workers had to be educated to measure up the legal
demands and to create Social Agencies in municipalities, which lead to professionalization of social work in municipalities. (Paajanen 2008, 4-8.)
Christian love for one’s neighbor was the basis for establishing the church social work
institutions, which were religious institutes but separate from the state church. The first
one, Helsingin diakonissalaitos, was established in 1867. They were to help and care for
the less fortunate people and the institutions also started to educate professional deaconesses, who became the first educated and paid social care workers in Finland. (Paajanen
2008, 4-6.)
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During their histories the municipal social work and the church social work have many
crossroads, where these two institutions share work fields but also have opposite views.
The municipal social work became more juridical and administrative whereas the
church social work focused more on spiritual and physical health care matters. In 1944
the church law obliged every congregation to hire a deaconess to help deal with social
problems. During the 1960’s and 1970’s the concept of municipal social work changed
due to influences from abroad, and social work was accepted as a university discipline.
In 1984 enacted a law of overall reform in social services, and the titles of social work
professionals were recorded in the law. (Paajanen 2008, 8-11.)
There is also a tremendous amount of NGO’s operating in Finland. 13 000 organizations are registered under Social and Health Services organizations with 1 000 000
members in total (Kansalaisyhteiskunta 2014). In addition there are numerous NGO’s in
other categories than Social and Health Services doing work that promotes social capital
in communities.
2.2
Contractually based social work in Mozambique
The history of universities in Mozambique states back to the early 1960’s when Portugal still governed Mozambique, and segregation defined the right to study in universities (Gujamo 2014). Social work education in universities is eight years old and suffers
from lack of students. The amount of functionaries in the field of social services is insufficient and many workers lack of higher education in social work: there are less than
100 trained social workers in the total of 1500 functionaries in social services serving a
population of 2 million. (Marrengula 2014; Alane 2011.)
Lack of educated professionals leads to representatives of other professions, such as
policemen, medical doctors and sociologists to do social work while getting paid for it.
This lacks of contractual basis in social work. (Marrengula 2014.) In Mozambique, an
organized control for social services has started to take shape only recently. Since 2008
the Minister of Social Affairs has pushed for creating a Social Protection Floor (SPF) in
Mozambique. A Regulation for Basic Social Security was approved in 2009 and National Strategy for Basic Social Security in 2010 by the Government of Mozambique.
7
(Social protection floor 2014; Alane 2011.) The Ministry of Women and Social Action
(MMAS) implements a wide range of social welfare issues (Alane 2011).
Still the Government of Mozambique is not keen to recognize the importance of social
work profession and to develop it. Students lack of interest on social work is due to unappealing work prospects and it is not seen as a good investment for the future.
(Marrengula 2014; Gujamo 2014.) Also financial resources aimed for social services are
minor: only 1% of the state budget is set apart for social actions (Alane 2011).
Informal social work is taking place in families and communities and has a strong cultural heritage. The communities have their own local strategies in solving problems and
coping with everyday issues. (Marrengula 2014; Mahumane 2014.)
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3
EPISTEMOLOGICAL DOMINATION IN SOCIAL WORK
Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge (Pressley 2005, 2). Then what is epistemological dominance? It can be described as epistemic authority or epistemic injustice.
It refers to structures that produce and maintain knowledge oppressing other structures
that produce and maintain knowledge. The ways that information and knowledge are
produced can be influenced by different kinds of elements that are forming the
knowledge to become of a certain type. (Anderson 2011.)
Santos, Nunes and Meneses (2008, 19-20) refer to monoculture of scientific knowledge
meaning that epistemological privilege granted to modern science from 17th century
onwards is dominating and suppressing the non-scientific epistemologies. The postcolonial epistemologies are dominating the local traditional epistemologies, which
causes difficulties in teaching and studying social work in Mozambique while local
strategies in solving problems should be supported by social workers in communities
(Marrengula 2014).
Anderson (2011) and Pressley (2005) write about feminist epistemology reflecting on
whose knowledge is knowledge in the context of sex. Men have dominated the concept
of producing knowledge while women have had minor chances to influence in any field
of life, for example in development of modern sciences that hold the epistemological
dominance in nowadays society. In the early days of development of Finnish social
work, women have had very little say in the work that only women were doing and Municipal Government consisting of men was coordinating (Paajanen 2008, 7).
3.1
In Mozambique
Local epistemologies should be enhanced because they provide support to social problems and coping mechanisms in communities (Mahumane 2014). Colonial recent history has dictated, who has been allowed to study at universities. The native Bantu people
weren’t able to study in the early years of universities in Mozambique, which has lead
to epistemological injustice: critical thinking, which is essential trying to achieve social
9
justice, could not be learned by the native people because of racial segregation. (Gujamo, 2014.)
Having been suppressed under the colonial power, native people have also started to
assimilate to dominant population, consciously or unconsciously. This has created a
mindset of wanting to be like the Portugese without understanding the consequences of
it in the context of local epistemologies. Without being able to study and enhance critical thinking a large population of people have started to alienate from their local
knowledge and culture. (Mahumane 2014.)
Santos (2010, 229-231) argues that colonialism is still present in nowadays society
through capitalism, and the basis of capitalism is built on epistemological domination.
This leads to global North dominating the practices of sciences taught and learned at
universities in postcolonial countries which get their influence from the modern sciences. Social work being a university disciplinary, formal social work practices are influenced by colonial and global dominance when the focus of social work should be in
supporting local strategies and local epistemologies. (Marrengula 2014).
Education in social work should recognize epistemological injustice and enhance epistemological pluralism. Working in communities the local epistemologies should be supported in preventing social problems and maintaining cultures. Critical skills should
also be taught through community work to enhance emancipation.
3.2
In Finland
In the late 20th century and the early 21st century, feminist critique concerning epistemologies of modern sciences has identified certain male biases in epistemology and in
the theories of produced by different disciplines. This resulted in the proposal of concepts such as standpoint epistemology. This indicates that there is a standpoint in generating “general knowledge”. (Nunes 2009.)
Both municipal and church social work in Finland are female predominant professions
which have been defined by male predominant sciences, theology and social politics. In
the early days of formal social work men governed the social services and also restricted
10
the area in society where women were allowed to function. (Paajanen 2008, 3,7.) This
can also be seen as epistemological dominance.
It was believed that women should not be accepted to leading positions in social services (or in other fields) because they lack of cold reason and are too gentle (Paajanen
2008, 7). Until 1924 women couldn’t be appointed in a state government position
(Naiset palkkatyössä 2010). Women were doing systematic charity and voluntary work
of which they did not get paid for (Paajanen 2008, 5).
This has surely affected on the concept of contemporary social work in Finland and not
the least on the wage trend. Nowadays social services still has a majority of women
staff due to the tradition of care professions being women’s area of work. Also the wages in the field of social services (and other fields of women majority in staff) are not
competitive with the wages on male dominant fields of work. The distinction in
amounts of salary between men and women in Finland is still large in the European context. (Naiset palkkatyössä 2010.)
Poor salary in the field of social services is due to appreciation of the work in society
which has historical interface with epistemological domination in the context of sex. In
the year 1945 Council of State regulated guidelines for salary, on the strength of what it
was allowed to pay less for women than men. This regulation was denied in the mid
50’s but the practice lived on. (Naiset palkkatyössä 2010.) The tradition of social services being done by charity and voluntary work has definitely had an impact on why
social services work has poor wages.
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4
CONCLUSION
Finland and Mozambique struggle with distinct social problems and the state of social
work education is different in a welfare country and a less-developed country. Still epistemological domination occurs in both countries. Dare I say it exists all around the
world in some form. It can exist in some small part of the world which is still unknown
to the western and colonial world. It can exist between two tribes or even individuals
that have their distinct knowledge and culture.
Several different epistemologies can dominate one another and form chains of domination. Colonialism, which oppressed entire nations, was invented and executed by men,
who didn’t allow women to take place in politics and decision making. Perhaps some
kind of domination exists in everything that has ever been or will ever be. Basically the
question comes to this: Can something be observed or contemplated with absolute objectivity? Does absolute objectivity even exist?
Philosophical questions like these are interesting in the context of social work. What
does the society, into which we are trying to integrate people, stand for? What epistemologies dominated when creating and molding it to become what it is? What kind of
social work are we doing and towards what purpose? What epistemologies have dominated our own thoughts so that they have become as they are?
It needs loads of critical thinking, probably more than any individual can possess, to
solve all kinds of issues of epistemological dominance. What is important in the context
of social work is that everything we do to help individuals or communities should be
critically reflected concerning these kinds of oppressive structures. Critical thinking and
reflection concerning social work should also be done in local and cultural context to
find the structures that are either useful or oppressive in that particular time and place.
Individuals need social structures and realities to cope through everyday life, even if
those social structures are influenced by some kind of epistemological dominance. And
it is a mission impossible to try to trim the global society of all forms of epistemological
domination. Important is to become aware of different forms of structural oppression so
that a helper or a care giver doesn’t without knowing promote them. Relevant question
12
in enhancing well-being in people’s everyday lives is: do people get chances and support to lead a satisfactory and happy life? Is the support given to people enhancing social capital and furthering emancipation and integration in the local context? Interventions should be made to oppressive structures when they are standing in the way of people’s wellbeing.
Alliances like North-South-South –collaboration are highly important to share understanding and perspectives. Through these kinds of encounters people get the chance to
broaden their comprehension of the world and to enhance mutual understanding and
respect for differences. And these are the key elements towards enhancing critical thinking and making difference in the world.
13
REFERENCES
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