Dissenting Social Work with Dr. Paul Michael Garrett

Dr. Garrett has quite the Biography and I wanted to share it with you. According to Paul Michael Garrett’s website, he is a social work educator and writer based in Ireland. His work enjoys far-reaching international recognition, and he has been described by the International Journal of Social Welfare, as ‘probably the most important critical social work theorist in the English-speaking world’. He has undertaken visiting professorships in China (East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 2017) and the US (City University of New York, 2018). Moreover, his Social Work and Social Theory (Policy Press, 2013) has been translated into Chinese and is a standard text on social work courses there.

As a Leftist public intellectual, his scholarly interventions and social activism are frequently interconnected and for two decades he has been a member of the Critical Social Policy Collective [ https://journals.sagepub.com/aims-scope/CSP]. His most recent books include Welfare Words: Critical Social Work and Social Policy (Sage, 2018), Dissenting Social Work: Critical Theory, Resistance and Pandemic (Routledge, 2021), Social Work with the Black African Diaspora co-authored with Washington Marovatsanga (Policy Press, 2022), Social Work and Common Sense: A Critical Examination (Routledge, 2024).

He was elected to the prestigious Royal Irish Academy in 2020. Moreover, he has three PhDs; from the University of Nottingham (2022), the National University of Ireland (a Higher Doctorate, 2020) and the Ghent University (an Honorary Doctorate, 2024). He is also featured on a survey on the ‘top 100 most impactful global contributors to social work journal scholarship’. Garrett is the only Irish based scholar on the list and is one of the sixth highest ranked social work scholars in all Europe. (Hodge and Turner, 2023).

Paul worked for many years as a social work practitioner, before becoming a full-time scholar in 1999. He was based at the University of Nottingham for five years and then – in 2004 – he took up his current position at (what is now) the University of Galway.

pmgarrettdissent.com (pmgarrettdsw.com)

I am very glad I took the opportunity to sit in on Episode 51 with Host Christine Ace Stettler and Dr. Paul Michael Garrett. I learned a lot during this podcast.

In this podcast Dr. Garrett talks about dissenting social work. He said that one level social work seems to be in specular great if one simply looks at the numbers. Also, in the states the profession is expected to grow by 7% over the period of 2022-2032. One level of risk of complacency in terms of if one just looks at the numbers. Debates around now if social work is a failure should it be ended. It is failing to live up to its ideas-values and International Federation of Social Work definition of profession highlights issues to do with human rights, social justice, and human liberation. Critic says these works are not being delivered on. They would point to historical factors to do with issues around colonization treatment of Indigenous people.

In this podcast Christine asked Dr. Garrett what neoliberal really means. Dr. Garrett stated he starts out teaching a master student class using Pope John Paul II. He describes neoliberalism as a form of savage capitalism. One can go further and say neoliberalism is about reshaping of the state. Transferring wealth resources to the higher echelons in societies. You see great disparities evolving in neoliberal societies between the super-rich and mostly the rest of the population to different degrees. Associate neoliberalism as well with a range of other factors, you know more kind of policing of those who were claiming what used to be called social security now is often Americanized as welfare. Those claiming welfare more surveillance behavior kind of conditionality. You will get this payment if you believe in this kind of way. Dissenting social work combats white supremacy and racism and is an alert to fascism.