Objective Subjectification: The Antimethod of Social Work

Abstract

This article sets out to understand an important paradox in the author's action research cooperation with a social work development project called "Wild Learning": the fact that the methods developed in the project mostly consist in antimethod. A sketch of the theoretical concepts in the dialectical tradition of method, objectification, subjectification, and participation is presented to explain the idea that social work itself represents a paradoxical form of knowledge, which can be only inadequately and temporarily objectified as method by way of what is introduced as a "boundary objectivity." Current "postmodern" forms of this paradox are briefly considered. As a conclusion, an overall understanding of social work as "critique" is suggested, in which both "method" and "antimethod" are necessary moments in a continuous transformation.

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