Join editors Mimi Kim, Cameron Rasmussen, and Durrell Washington and contributors Ramona Beltran and Stéphanie Wahab for a conversation about their new book, Abolition and Social Work: Possibilities, Paradoxes, and the Practice of Community Care. 

Abolition and Social Work explores the debates, conundrums, and promising practices around abolition and social work in academia and within impacted communities. Within social work—a profession that has been intimately tied to and often complicit in the building and sustaining of the carceral state—abolitionist thinking, movement-building, and radical praxis are shifting the field. Critical scholarship and organizing have helped to name and examine the realities of carceral social work as a form of “soft policing.” For radical social work, abolition moves beyond critique to the politics of possibility.

“This book breaks the humanitarian illusion of social work and raises the real questions about if and how we can infiltrate its systems to redistribute, disrupt, and support liberation.” —Dean Spade

“This critical collection invites everyone in a ‘caring profession’ into a critical assessment of their collusion with the carceral state, points to the promise of an abolitionist approach to care work, and challenges all of us to reach beyond policing in new forms to radically reimagine how we care for each other.” —Andrea J. Ritchie

***Register through Ticket Tailor to receive a link to the live-streamed video on the day of the event. This event will also be recorded and captioning will be provided.***

Speakers:

Mimi E. Kim is an associate professor of social work at California State University, Long Beach, and founder of Creative Interventions. Mimi continues her political work through promotion of transformative justice and abolitionist visions and practices of community care and safety. 

Cameron Rasmussen is a social worker, educator, researcher and facilitator and an associate director at the Center for Justice at Columbia University. 

Durrell Washington Sr. is a social worker, educator, facilitator and researcher from the Bronx, NY and a PhD Candidate at the University of Chicago School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Durrell is a critical and interdisciplinary scholar whose research draws from social work, sociological, criminological, developmental and legal theories and perspectives.

Dr. Ramona Beltrán is an associate professor of social work at the University of Denver. Dancer. Academic Director. Producer. Mother. An award-winning public intellectual with global initiatives in historical trauma and healing and storytelling methodologies that have been cited by researchers and practitioners alike. In her 20 years of professional experience, spanning the United States to New Zealand, she has worked alongside institutions, Indigenous, and Latinx communities, spotlighting solutions that are present in our creative and cultural-driven modalities.

Stéphanie Wahab PhD., MSW is a Professor at Portland State University’s School of Social Work. She is a Palestinian-Québécoise, feminist, activist scholar. Her research and scholarship tend to occur at the intersections of individual and state sanctioned violence including but not limited to intimate partner violence, sex trades, systemic racism, militarization, and occupation. She is a member of the Palestinian Feminist Collective, and co-editor of Feminisms in Social Work Research: Promise and possibilities for justice based knowledge.