Social Work and theatre: considering intersections

Theatre is a cultural and artistic form that involves a process of communication between creators and is received in a space and time located in the public sphere, which has meant that, over the centuries, it has acted as a space for expression, exchange and debate regarding all manner of ideas, causes and struggles. Implicit within this process are processes of expression, creation and reception, by way of which people demonstrate, analyse and question ways of seeing and understanding life, and ways of being and existing in the world. This gives rise to educational, cultural, social and political potential, which has been endorsed in numerous studies and investigations. In this work, in which theoretical orientation is established through a review of the relevant literature, we consider different intersections that occur between theatre and social work in order to also show that dramatic and theatrical expression offers substantive methodologies for achieving some objectives of social work, particularly in areas such as critical literacy, reflexivity and recognition, awareness raising, social participation, personal and/or community development, ownership of cultural capital and access to personal and social wellbeing.

Female employment from the household. Towards a comprehensive analysis of work-life articulation

Research on women’s employment has proliferated over recent decades, often under a perspective that conceptualizes female labour market activity as independent of male presences and absences in the productive and reproductive spheres. In the face of these approaches, the article argues the need to focus on the couple as the unit of analysis of work-life articulation. After referring to the main theoretical arguments that, from a gender perspective within labour studies, have pointed out the relevance of placing the household as the central space for the analysis of the sexual division of labour, the article reviews different empirical contributions that have incorporated such perspective in the international literature. Next, the state of the art in the Spanish literature is presented, before arguing the desirability of applying such framework of analysis to the study of employment and care work in Spanish households, which are at present undergoing major transformations.

The Worsening of the employment and work conditions and its relationship to the self-perceived health in European working population. Relevance and effects of the latest socioeconomic crisis

The recent crisis of the capitalistic economic system has altered the working conditions and occupations in the European Union. The recession situation has accelerated trends and has brought transformations that have been observed before. Changes have not looked the same way in all the countries of the Union. The social occupation norms, labour relations models and the type of global welfare provision can help underline some of these inequalities. Poor working conditions can expose workers to situations of great risk. This is one of the basic assumptions of the theoretical models and analytical studies of the approach to the psychosocial work environment. Changes in working conditions of the population seems to be important to explain in the worst health states. To observe these features in the current period of economic recession it has made a comparative study of trend through the possibilities of the European Working Conditions Survey in the 2005 and 2010 editions. It has also set different multivariate logistic regression models to explore potential partnerships with the worst conditions of employment and work. It seems that the economic crisis has intensified changes in working conditions and highlighted the effects of those conditions on the poor health of the working population. This conclusion can’t be extended for all EU countries; some differences were observed in terms of global welfare models.

The Art of Change Movement: an anti-oppressive Social Work initiative

This article presents the Art of Change Movement (Movimiento Arte del Cambio), which has developed out of a project of the Association of Social Workers Without Boundaries (Asociación Trabajadores/as Sociales Sin Fronteras), with the collaboration of the Faculty of Social Work at Universidad de Granada and of education professionals, incorporating theatrical creativity and musical expression as pedagogical and social intervention tools. The aim is for the initiative to become another instrument in the fight against oppression. Through a laboratory for collective creativity involving students and professionals from social work and other social science disciplines, the movement seeks social transformation through artistic expression, based on political commitment and sustainable development that empowers participants.

Late-career international migration and reproductive work. A comparison between Peruvian and Ukrainian women in the Southern Europe

Research on the relationship between reproductive work and women´s life trajectories including the experience of labour migration has mainly focused on the case of relatively young mothers who leave behind, or later re-join, their children. While it is true that most women migrate at a younger age, there are a significant number of cases of men and women who move abroad for labour purposes at a more advanced stage, undertaking a late-career migration. This is still an under-estimated and under-researched sub-field that uncovers a varied range of issues, including the global organization of reproductive work and the employment of migrant women as domestic workers late in their lives. By pooling the findings of two qualitative studies, this article focuses on Peruvian and Ukrainian women who seek employment in Spain and Italy when they are well into their forties, or older. A commonality the two groups of women share is that, independently of their level of education and professional experience, more often than not they end up as domestic and care workers. The article initially discusses the reasons for late-career female migration, taking into consideration the structural and personal determinants that have affected Peruvian and Ukrainian women’s careers in their countries of origin and settlement. After this, the focus is set on the characteristics of domestic employment at later life, on the impact on their current lives, including the transnational family organization, and on future labour and retirement prospects. Apart from an evaluation of objective working and living conditions, we discuss women’s personal impressions of being domestic workers in the context of their occupational experiences and family commitments. In this regard, women report varying levels of personal and professional satisfaction, as well as different patterns of continuity-discontinuity in their work and family lives, and of optimism towards the future. Divergences could be, to some extent, explained by the effect of migrants´ transnational social practices and policies of states.

Migrant women’s employment in paid reproductive work through the crisis: the case of Italy (2007-2012)

Paid reproductive work, especially in the case of cleaning and home-care for elderly people, is an important sector for foreign women in Italy. For this reason, since the beginning of the current economic crisis, scholars have wondered about the impact of the recession on migrant domestic workers. They have looked particularly at possible competition with Italian women entering the sector for lack of better alternatives. Our paper takes this discussion a step further by assessing the overall changes affecting migrant women in the Italian labour market, 2007-2012. We will look at how their position has been transformed, by taking both an ethnic perspective, in relation to Italian women, and a gender perspective, in relation to migrant men. By way of a conclusion, the argument will be made that there is a substantial lack of competition between Italian and foreign women in the care and domestic sector due to differences in their earnings, hours of work and activities.

Perspectives on gender, migration and transnational work: joint work of social reproduction and care in Southern Europe

This paper presents the "state of the art" and some of the main issues discussed in relation to the topic of transnational migration and reproductive work in southern Europe. We start doing a genealogy of the complex theoretical development leading to the consolidation of the research program, linking consideration of gender with transnational migration and transformation of work and ways of survival, thus making the production aspects as reproductive, in a context of globalization. The analysis of the process of multiscale reconfiguration of social reproduction and care, with particular attention to its present global dimension is presented, pointing to the turning point of this line of research that would have taken place with the beginning of this century, with the rise notions such as "global care chains" (Hochschild, 2001), or "care drain" (Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2013). Also, the role of this new agency, now composed in many cases women who migrate to other countries or continents, precisely to address these reproductive activities, is recognized. Finally, reference is made to some of the new conceptual and theoretical developments in this area.

In tyrannos! Political Theology and “messianic difference” in Franz Rosenzweig’s New Thinking

This paper deals with an elucidation of the theologico-political implications of Franz Rosenzweig’s relational conception of time in his work The Star of Redemption, the peculiarity of which expresses the concept “messianic difference”. Considered from the standpoint of the secularization debate, this messianic temporality offers a response to the verification of the Hegelian assembly of political philosophy and philosophy of history which, according to Rosenzweig, First World War represented. The consequent political disappointment experienced by the author of Hegel und der Staat led him to the pursuit of a Neues Denken determined by the ontological primacy of time as well as the unbreakable relationship which Rosenzweig established between “temporality” and “otherness”. Taking as terminus a quo the anthropological distinction between “personality” and “self”, i. e. between “ethics” and “metaethics”, that Rosenzweig presents in The Star, I will finally attempt to explore the various modes of temporalization that, depending on the relation to the temporalization of God and the world, are possible for the Rosenzweigian Self, as well as their related theologico-political aftermaths.

The redemption of the past. On a main motif in Walter Benjamin’s work

The following paper examines Walter Benjamin’s reflection on the category of “redemption”, mainly developed in the theses On the concept of History. To this end, we will try firstly to reconstruct Benjamin’s critique of “fate”, as it unfolds in the twenties on the field of right, economy and, especially, history. The critique of the expiatory logic of “fate” – developed in essays such as Fate and Character, Critique of violence or Capitalism as religion – will then allow us to disclose the “dialectical” structure of redemption, whereby Benjamin mobilizes his previous theory of knowledge against the doctrine of progress.