Social justice and social work with asylum seekers and refugees in times of crisis: Voices from the front line.

Over the past decade, two major socio-political questions have emerged in Greece. The first one is related to the 2009 financial crisis, which resulted in a decade-long period of harsh austerity. The second one reflected the intensification of the so-called “refugee crisis” and the subsequent implementation of the brutal politics of a “hostile environment”. In different ways, both issues affected the way social work practice was engaged with communities and policymakers. Under these circumstances, social work’s declared commitment to social justice and ethical practice was put to the test. This thesis, written during a period of “concentric crises”, explores how social work and social care practitioners who worked with refugees in Greece’s notorious hot spots, understand and engage with the principles of ethical practice and social justice. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were used alongside walking interviews and multi-sited participant observations of protest events and grassroots movements. Data analysis was informed by a thematic approach. Findings demonstrate how discourses and practices are based on an exclusionary, hierarchical, “Us/ Them” understanding of the Other. The effects of capitalism and competing neoliberal interests appeared to be encroaching into the organization of social work since managerialism and performance were identified as key demands that depoliticise practice. Results also suggest that practitioners prioritise social justice as a key concept in their work, despite day-to-day pressures and structural injustices. On a practice level, social justice-based work is deeply informed by participants’ biographies and includes mediation, advocacy, and challenging unwarranted injustice and discrimination. The current study also provides a critique to neoliberal interpretations of “self-reliance” and “resilience”, that tend to locate refugees and asylum seekers within a restrictive, deserving/ undeserving dichotomy, thus ignoring broader structural issues. Social workers who participated in this study provided significant, powerful examples of practice and activism that emphasised on social and economic rights. The findings do not imply a majority shift towards political practice in social work but demonstrate the dynamism and importance of alliances and ‘connectedness’ of diverse communities struggling against multiple oppressions. The thesis aims at contributing to the need for social work to be able to analyse the impact of neoliberal paradigm of austerity on the welfare state and the most vulnerable while acknowledging its political and social dimension to transform the economic structures and social relations that cause poverty, oppression and inequalities based on social equality for inclusion and belonging.