Gazing at Ground Zero: Tourism, Voyeurism and Spectacle

This essay uses the temporary viewing platform at the site of the former World Trade Center to explore our fascination with violence, conflict and disaster. It illustrates how discourses of voyeurism and authenticity promote a desire for sites of horror, and examines how that desire both disrupts and reinforces our prevailing interpretations of global politics. The viewing platform at Ground Zero was initially constructed to manage the thousands of people who traveled to New York in response to the shocking media images of 11 September. However, their desire to escape mediation and touch "the real" had the opposite effect - it transformed Ground Zero into a tourist attraction. Using Ground Zero as a starting point, this essay theorizes discourses of voyeurism and authenticity through the work of Baudrillard, Debord and Bauman in an effort to position the tourist as a significant political subject.

Reflecting on Habitus, Field and Capital: Towards a Culturally Sensitive Social Work

Summary: This article argues that the notion of the knowledge base as a central aspect of professional activity is flawed, and that it is more useful to see social work as in a continuous process of constructing and reconstructing professional knowledge. Findings: Culture is an area that has attracted widespread attention in academia and the social professions. However, there has been little examination of culturally sensitive social work practice from a realist perspective, or one that starts from the view that oppressive structures, as encoded within social class, are essential determinants of cultural experience. Following a critique of postmodern perspectives on culture, the work of Pierre Bourdieu on culture and power is explored. Applications: Three of Bourdieu's key constructs - habitus, field and capital - are utilized to develop a model for culturally sensitive social work practice that attends to the interplay of agency and structure in reproducing inequalities within the social world.

Mental Health Social Work and the Troubles in Northern Ireland: A Study of Practitioner Experiences

• Summary: During the last decade increasing attention has been paid to the impact of the Troubles1 on social work in Northern Ireland. In this paper, the authors describe the first survey used to test some of the assumptions which exist in the literature. An 87-item questionnaire was applied to a range of social work staff currently working in, or associated with, mental health settings. One hundred and one questionnaires were returned: it is estimated that this represented over 70 per cent of mental health social workers in Northern Ireland. • Findings: The design of the questionnaire elicited both qualitative and quantitative data. The findings reveal a workforce with complex religious and national identities and many of the respondents have experienced relatively high levels of Troubles-related incidents whilst carrying out their duties in a variety of organizational and geographical settings. High proportions of respondents received minimal agency support and training to equip them to deal with Troubles-related problems faced by them during this period. • Applications: The authors conclude that the profession and employing agencies should pay greater attention to past and present effects of the Troubles on social work practice and develop appropriate strategies for supporting, training and resourcing staff in this neglected area.