Social Work as a Paid Profession: Limits and Possibilities in Contemporary Times

https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n52.09

Sergio Quintero Londoño
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9232-7083
Universidad de Caldas, Colombia
sergio.quintero@ucaldas.edu.co

Abstract:

This reflection article brings together some ideas from Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukács on the category of “labor,” along with data from three recent research works addressing the labor conditions of social work professionals in Colombia. Through this theoretical reflection, we aim to decipher certain qualitative and quantitative data that shed light on the conditions of professional social work practice within the contemporary context of labor precarization. The theoretical and empirical argument highlights the contradictory nature of work, which, as an ontological category of social being, can either enhance freedom and/or lead to alienation. Social work is not exempt from this contradiction, making it necessary to identify forms of alienation and strengthen the relative autonomy that allows for the construction of a critical professional project.

Keywords: work, wage labor, social work, profession.