Social Work Facing the Challenge of Living Together: Towards the Construction of Collective Spaces

Vincent Artison, street social worker in Switzerland and resource person for the Dynamo International network. Henri Vieille-Grosjean, professor emeritus and anthropologist of education in France, 2023

This article is structured around two questions. The first questions the legitimacy of certain forms of social work, the content of which still too often reflects the logic and strategies inherited from the North American socio-analyses of the 1970s (Wacquant, 2007). In those years, the positions taken by social workers were often conflated with recommendations highlighting the necessary steps for re-socialisation. Second question: how can we reconcile the challenges of living together with the dynamics of personal histories?

The conditions and challenges of living together have been part of the French collective space since the 18th century. Jean-Jacques Rousseau spelled them out in a text called The Social Contract (2012 [1762]), which he presented as the way to live in society. The basic principle is that civil law should take precedence over personal appetites.