عنوان

Geographers of small things :

Number

TLets667806

Title Proper

Geographers of small things :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Jeyasingham, Dharman John

Title Proper by Another Author

a study of the production of space in children's social work

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Birmingham

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2015

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

University of Birmingham

Text preceding or following the note

2015

Text of Note

This study explores children's social workers' experiences of and practices in space. It is based on ethnographic research with social workers in two sites and examines data from observations, interviews with social workers, photographs and other images of the spaces in which social workers practised. The study draws on the work of Henri Lefebvre, concerned with how space is produced through spatial practices, conceptions of space and moments of lived space, which occur beyond these conventions and escape complete articulation. The study uses this analytical frame in order to explore how social workers produce certain kinds of spaces as significant in their practice. It identifies a small number of affect-heavy spaces which hold great importance for children's social work: social work offices, children's and practitioners' bodies, families' homes as they are experienced by practitioners during home visits, the wider neighbourhoods which social workers associate with service users. In particular, it identifies social workers' attention to small things and micro-scales in their practice. This enables social workers to present their work as sensitive to that which is imperceptible to others but also leads to a restricted focus and limited engagement with the social and political contexts of service users' lives.

HQ The family. Marriage. Woman

HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare

Jeyasingham, Dharman John

University of Birmingham

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y