The common/commons and social welfare. keys for discussion at a change of era

Abstract

The paper comes from the lecture presented at the virtual Third Interinstitutional Seminar on Social Policies and Social Work: “Social Welfare Research from a Social Work Approach” organized by an study group integrated by academics, researchers and postgraduate students of Nuevo Leon, Guadalajara y Ciudad Juarez Universities. It has been rewritten and deepened for this occasion. Here I discuss the age changes and its consequences related to the social configurations, welfare systems and professions that intervene in a social assistance field, particularly in social work. Therefore, I follow a concise path through the last forty years in our region in order to develop these changes taking my time to observe the neoliberal political projects and in the subjectivity that was taking shape; these world views at the same time holding the same projects. In that record I put “social welfare” and its metamorphosis in step with different formats which social policies adopt. It´s just because of this scenario that I consider important to explore in detail the conditions of possibility to build more inclusive and equal societies, in order to overcome the repetition of the same proposals facing problems that show very different today than they used to appear years before. In this sense I bring up the
question of “common/commons” as a core idea to re-think alternatives leading to new horizons in which social work - from its own position- may contribute.