Exhaustion, Environmental Writing and Social Change. The Glocal Turn(ing point) in Social Work

Description

This keynote is an invitation/kutsu/inbjudan, to open for considering how the language of exhaustion can be useful for creative and critical re-thinking of environments and structures in social work practice and education. Exhaustion/uupumus/utmattning is not the same as being tired. It is an intense feeling of restlessness and insomnia, that potentially creates an awakening that opens for new possibilities to act for social change. The framing of the talk is inspired by the glocal turn in social work, a condition where glocality, a fusion of local and global, promotes creative, place-based, intersectional, and multi-lingual/monikielinen/mångspråkiga approaches to understand how diverse life forms, experiences, buildings, landscapes, and things, are interconnected, interdependent and co-existing. By using creative life writing genres such as diary, memories, poetry, and photography, I illustrate how tracing exhaustion during the pandemic, visualizes a multiplicity of structures of oppression and privilege, such as ageism, sexism, and racism. I suggest that social work as a glocalised field and education replace the often-used terminology of social problems and vulnerability with exhaustion and that environmental writing/ympäristöön kirjottaminen/miljömedvetet skrivande, is a useful method for increased awareness, attention, engagement, listening, and agency to promote social justice and structural change.

Period	17 Feb 2022
Held at	Jyväskylän yliopisto / Jyväskylän yliopistosäätiö, Finland