Reseña

Social Work, the writing of Nelia Tello Peón, constitutes an exception in the universal literature on the conceptualization, the connotations of the discipline and the applicative dimensions of professional practice in social work

The text distances itself from the transdisciplinary perspective, the problem-situation, the question of intervention, the construction of the concept of change, and the formulation of the intervention strategy of the visions that seek, from other disciplines, to define and denote the praxis of social work.

Making visible what social work really is and does supports a detailed analysis, taking as a starting point the intervention –a mirror of the various professional fields, of the sometimes unsuspected scope of the ability to build change processes that are perceived as impossible–, from the within society and communities. But, above all, with the guidance, the expertise, the ability to undo political, institutional, legal and religious obstacles from social work. Daily practices, processes, procedures, actions and theoretical supports of professional work are pillars that show contributions to trace conceptual assumptions articulated in doing social work.

Based on the previous definitions of social work, Tello seeks to limit and strengthen the specificity of the profession/discipline. The author endorses the recurring problems in the profession: multiplicity and dispersion of purposes, contradictory and juxtaposed positions, lack of conceptualization, ambiguity and imprecision.

Her emphasis is clear: she assumes intervention beyond her polysemic professional scope, as a knowledge whose level of specificity ties learnings and actions to influence social realities.

Social intervention is a privileged field of disciplinary and professional knowledge, a way to reconstruct knowledge from the social (in favor of new approaches to social problems, new lines of research, the promotion of new interdisciplinary fields of reflection) and, in turn, a promising core of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dialogue for social change.