Social Work and its Discontents Under Neoliberal Conditions: The Rhetorics and Realities of the Concept „Inclusion“

Abstract

A spectre is haunting European social policies and European social
work – the spectre of „inclusion“. During recent years, the terms
„exclusion“ and „inclusion“ have become central concepts in politics, the
social sciences and last not least social work. Social exclusion has been
declared to be one of the core problems of social work (cf. e.g. Sheppard
207, 5ff.). Despite a formidable career which the concept has made in
politics and academia, turning up in each and every context and corner of
the social work discourse, from the very beginning its lack of clarity and
analytical lucidity has been critizised (cf. e.g. Anhorn 2008). Thus, the
term exclusion – and the demand for inclusion - is used for completely
different empirical phenomena such as long-term unemployment,
migrants, homosexuals, lesbians, transsexuals, ethnic groups and people
with impairments or disabilities – groups and individuals that presumably
are not exposed to the same mechanisms of exclusion and whose
„exclusion“ takes very different forms.