Kaspar Villadsen: The reappearance of philanthropy: the break up of citizenship, community and freedom ?
That article argues that philanthropic principles for social work have achieved growing prominence in social policy and social work during the last 10-15 years. As a result of this process, new ways of categorising and governing social clients have begun to prevail at the expense of currently existing ones. Therefore, we need to ask what kind of regime is now being introduced in social work. Among the crucial questions are which forms of observation, discourse and power are now made possible, and which are consequently made impossible, how can knowledge be produced about social clients, and how can we turn them into objects of government. Other important issues are what is being displaced or transformed in the existing social work regime, can one no longer speak of obobjective human needs, societal conditions or social problems as structural effects, and, even more important, what kind of subject is now to be fostered in the social
client. The article analyses these issues and concludes that the re-activation of concepts and techniques invented by
19th century philanthropy puts existing forms of knowledge and government in social work in jeopardy. It also raises questions about general transformations of the welfare state and its concepts of citizenship, community and freedom.
