The erosion of social protection principles : Qualitative research on the role of social work in the lives of citizens living in precarity

The erosion of social protection principles : Qualitative research on the role of social work in the lives of citizens living in precarity

Résumé :
Over the last forty years, poverty reduction strategies have evolved in the Belgian political system, percolating through the heart of public action mechanisms (Palier & Surel, 2005). The poverty reduction narrative has gradually become a field on its own in the political spectrum, with countless political representatives at all levels of the Belgian federal state. From the Communities to the Federal State with the Regions in between, poverty reduction strategies are developed at all levels of the state. Among other political positions, it includes a Secretary of State, one minister in each region, one Public Center for Social Welfare (P.C.S.W.) in each municipality, whose areas of decision-making cover public measures to struggle poverty. In the same vein, countless private organizations continue to emerge and position themselves in the field of poverty reduction strategies, such as private foundations and Non-Profitable Organizations.

We believe that the emergence of Poverty Reduction Strategies on the political agenda as a mode of public action (Palier & Surel, 2005) shows the gradual shift from one social model to another or in sociological terms, from one cognitive and normative matrix or paradigm (Palier & Surel, infra; Krumer-Nevo, 2016) to the other, with reference to a vital shift from welfare state principles to the workfare state. The gradual emergence of this latter paradigm has profoundly reshaped the Belgian social question and reshuffled the cognitive and normative frameworks inherited from the social pact of 1944 (Vrancken, 2012).

The knowledge ambition of our doctoral research project is to examine how contemporary social policies orientations and the focus on poverty and child poverty reduction strategies directly impact social work frameworks and interventions. Our exemplary focus will be on the most preeminent public institution that embodies poverty reduction strategies in Belgium, the Public Centre for Social Welfare in each municipality and its evolution over the last hundred years. Furthermore, we will demonstrate the erosion of social protection principles in the framework of poverty and child poverty reduction strategies, from the perspective of social work practices and families, considering that child poverty must always endorse a family-oriented approach.