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Book Review: Social Work and the Body

Cameron and McDermott’s book is presented as breaking new ground in the theory and practice of social work. Why, then, might it be of interest to qualitative health researchers? And why now? I suggest that the book can be read in two ways: on its own terms as a theory-meets-practice account; and from a health research perspective. The book has significant strengths in both regards, but its achievements are limited by two major shortcomings. Nonetheless, it is likely to be of interest to a wider readership as a theoretically interesting piece that complements trends in qualitative health research since its publication, and that points clearly to important future research directions. The book is presented in two parts, the first (The Body in Social Work) establishes a theoretical framework for social work practice. The second (Implications for Practice) explores how the framework might be implemented in five different areas of social work. Both contain elements that are highly relevant to rethinking approaches to qualitative health research. Both also fall short of realizing this potential fully or explicitly. The first chapter lays out the territory for a distinctive, body-centered account of social work. The argument that the body has been absented or obscured from social work literature is well made, and common assumptions about the body (as separate from mind and environment, and as biological rather than social organism) are usefully laid out and critiqued. Questions of the body in professional practice are, despite a “somatic turn” across many social science disciplines (Shilling, 2003), in need of additional theoretical and empirical attention. The authors’ choice of perspective is laudable, as is their ambition to engage with discourses of the body in a practice-focused yet theoretically robust way—an ambition they realize with considerable success. However, a lack of fuller theoretical and conceptual unpicking ultimately weakens the development of radical alternative perspectives on what it means to research, theorize, and do social work. There are major epistemological upheavals at stake here, challenges to ways of thinking that have infused scholarly and professional life for centuries (Cartesian mind/body dualisms being the most obvious example). The politics and relations of domination or subversion associated with conventional approaches are not explored. I am thinking here of the body as passive medium of mind’s intentions, mind as rational, body as subject to emotions, gender associations with mind (male) and body (female). This book is doing more work on these fronts than the authors state, and thus their repositioning, although fascinating and distinctive, feels somewhat underpowered and less radical than it might actually be. The proceeding chapters offer well-grounded overviews of two radically different ways of understanding the body: first neuroscience (with a particular focus on emotions and connections between bodies and environments), then social bodies (referencing a wide range of scholars including Goffman, Giddens, Schatzki, Butler, Merleau-Ponty, and Foucault). The fourth and fifth chapters develop two key concepts: the body-cognizant social worker and corporeal capacity. The former implies a practitioner must be aware of biological perspectives on environment and human behavior as well as social meanings ascribed to bodies, including in communication. The latter concerns a view of human beings as “environmentally embodied beings, adapting, changing, and shaping ourselves and the material and social world as our lives unfold” (p. 90). These concepts are valuable as attempts to integrate more biologically and socially oriented discourses on the body. As they are applied in the book, they constitute useful conceptual tools for researchers. However, I suggest their potential goes further than the authors make explicit. Although the authors aim to put the body at the center of thinking and practice, professionals’ bodies remain largely “othered” throughout, because the emphasis remains almost entirely focused on the bodies of patients or clients rather than social workers themselves. Regular but only cursory reference is made to the significance of professionals’ own bodies, and this hugely exciting avenue is left unexplored. It would, however, be entirely consistent with and readily explored using their two big concepts. This focus on the other is maintained throughout the chapters of the second part, in which the two concepts are discussed with reference to social work and mental health, child protection, aged care, health care, and alcohol or drug abuse. The breadth 392594QHR21910.1177/104973231039259 4Book ReviewsQualitative Health Research