Annual of social work, Vol. 20 No. 1, 2013.
Review article
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL WORK PROFESSION CHALLENGES IN THE POST-CONFLICT AND TRANSITIONAL SOCIETY: BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA CASE STUDY
Sanela Bašić
; Faculty of Political science, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosna and Herzegovina
Abstract
The paper presents three key challenges faced by post-socialist society of Bosnia and Herzegovina: post-conflictness, transition and poverty, and it analyses the complex interaction of these processes resulting in political, economic and social disempowerment of different layers of population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Through questioning potential social work responses to challenges of disempowered society, the paper presents an overview of the socialist tradition of the social work profession and the modes in which the profession adjusted to the oppressive social reality in the war and post-war conditions of society neofeudalisation. Revival and reaffirmation of the social work profession based on the principles of human rights and social justice has been overlooked and in this way the future prospects of the profession growing into a respectable transformed profession have been undermined. A new potential professional paradigm shift could be found in the commitment of Bosnian and Herzegovinian social workers to the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development promoting principles of social citizenship, human rights, social justice and sustainable development.
Keywords
post-conflictness; transition; neofeudalism; poverty; social exclusion; social work; human rights; social justice
Hrčak ID:
104554
URI
Publication date:
3.6.2013.
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