Political Conflict and Peace-Making - Is it a Social Work Role?

Overview: This study explores social workers’ professional life stories and role perceptions in the context of an intractable political conflict. The findings suggest that role perceptions are affected by the type of engagement with the conflict, and the professional narrative. Implications for social work education and practice are discussed.Proposal text: Background and purpose:
Intractable conflicts are a form of political conflict that persist over a long period of time despite multiple attempts at resolution. Members of involved societies live under conditions of insecurity, uncertainty, and stress for extended periods (Bar-Tal, 2013). As a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, considered by many as a prototypical example of intractable conflict (Bar-Tal, 2013), social workers in Israel address death, injury, loss and social disadvantages in their own lives, and in the lives of their clients. They are also ethically responsible for developing services that address the root causes for the injustices that are inflicted by the conflict on all members of society. Yet, a review of the literature shows that the main prism through which social workers address the conflict is focused on the individual level with almost no attention to how social workers might engage at the political and policy level, or any societal role they may take (Moshe-Grodofsky, 2019, Ramon, 2008).
This study explores the experiences of Jewish-Israeli social workers, as representatives of the dominant culture in Israel, including the ways they might address the effects of the conflict, the injustices it inflicts, or any role they might have in peacemaking. This research employs a narrative life story approach to understand the relationships between social workers’ personal identities, professional values and political ideologies, and the ways they perceive and carry out their professional roles in addressing the effects of the conflict on their clients and larger society.
Methods
Narrative methods (Lieblich et al., 1998) were used to explore the professional life stories of Jewish-Israeli social workers. Sixteen participants completed two interviews lasting approximately 2 hours, over Zoom. Analysis was performed according to Lieblich’s (1998) narrative data analysis plan of reading for content in a holistic manner, followed by thematic analysis (Schwandt, 2014).

Results
Participants types of engagement with the political conflict, on the individual and professional levels, shape the ways they perceive possible roles the profession may have in relation to the political conflict.
Three Role categories emerged:
a) “Not our Job”: participants viewed the conflict as having minimal implications for clients and did not identify any active roles social workers should be taking in relation to the conflict.
b) “Partially our Job”: participants viewed the conflict as having many implications for clients yet identifying a limited range of roles social workers might fulfil in relation to the conflict.
c) “Very Much our Job”: participants viewed the conflict as having many implications for clients, identifying a large range of roles social workers could and should fulfill in relation to the conflict.
Discussion
The findings suggest that Jewish-Israeli social workers have a limited view of the roles they might have to address these effects. Furthermore, they do not have the language, knowledge or skills to do so. Social workers practicing in regions experiencing intractable conflicts around the world must employ a politically-aware social justice framework, recognizing the macro and micro effects of intractable conflicts on clients and society as a whole.