Introduction

Can postmodern feminist understandings allow us as social workers to resist domination and if so, how? Is it either possible or desirable to unite postmodern thinking with ‘movements’ such as feminism which are concerned with political action? Or does postmodernism with its insistence that there is no possibility of ‘innocent’ knowledge undermine any basis for political change? Does the postmodern focus on difference inevitably hinder possibilities for solidarity? Does the questioning of identities and categories leave us without any tools to challenge oppression? What does it mean ‘practically’ to research/practise from a feminist postmodern perspective? The chapters presented in this book in varying ways engage with these difficult questions. Perspectives drawn from social theory, in particular postmodernism and feminism and postmodern feminism are applied to ‘social work’ which has itself to be viewed as a contested activity or set of activities.