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In the era of neo-liberalism, social work in the U.S. is arguably overly professionalized and privatized, and has almost lost its activists roots toward enhancing “social justice”. Through this trend, radical social work rooted in macro level community-based practice has been in crisis over the past three decades. The rise of socially engaged art has become more prominent in the U.S. while social work has strayed away from its basic tenets such as community practice, advocacy, and social action (De Bruyne & Gielen, 2011). How do we (social work profession) interpret the rise of socially engaged art - already a trend in art world - whose modality and purpose resembles radical social work? By comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences between radical social work and socially engaged art, this article examines the possibility of consilience between two special areas and the implications for the social work profession.
Case selections for five socially engaged arts are totally based on their contents and purposes which can make them differentiate from radical social work, absolutely purposeful. Process tracing and causal-process observation have been done by a socially engaged artist. Inter-rater reliability is garnered through examination of outside auditor, Jooyoung Lee, a socially engaged artist. Internal validity can be contrasted with credibility or authenticity. Here I aim to answer the questions, do the findings of the study make sense? Are they credible to the people I study themselves or others? Finally, I want to know if my conclusions are transferable to other contexts or not and how far can they be generalized?
It is evident that socially engaged art has temporary and event-based aspects and has a unique function as provoking controversial ideas – sometimes challenging the dominant social morals – through creative methods. Helguera (2011) maintained that while a social worker and a socially engaged artist operate in the same ecosystem and share similar purposes and values, a social worker must act as an expert for the purpose of social betterment. Socially engaged artists sometimes are involved with the practices which can be morally questionable. In other words, they can choose a way of enhancing tensions, creating problems, and irony in order to gain more attention on problems in the community.
The original function of socially engaged art, which moves issues or problems associated with other disciplines to the space of ambiguity, can give them new insights and make the problems visible to other disciplines. This unique role deeply related to art’s inherent nature should not be diminished or underestimated. If we can avoid devaluing this priceless merit of socially engaged art, it is worth trying collaboration between radical social work and socially engaged art by taking advantage of the strengths of both areas. The implication for radical social work is that it is a good chance to revisit our inherent activist roots and a wake-up call for the social work profession for reestablishing community-based practice, the root of the way for actualizing “social justice”