Securitisation or ”a part of the palette”? A qualitative study of professional implications for Swedish social workers encountering violent extremism

Abstract

Violent extremism is widely acknowledged as a threat to contemporary societies. This problem, and how it can be counteracted, has been given increased attention. In several countries, including Sweden, welfare professions, such as social workers, are given a role in the work against it. This article aims at investigating whether social work’s encounter with violent extremism has a potential to complicate and challenge social workers’ views on the role and purpose of social work, and how this would manifest. Through semi-structured interviews with Swedish social workers, the possible influences of the partly security-oriented work against violent extremism, on the typically care and support oriented social work profession, are explored. The main findings are that the social workers interviewed are not influenced by the work against violent extremism in such a way that their views of their profession are substantially affected. Instead, the social workers mainly seem to approach violent extremism in accordance with conventional views on the nature of social work, rather than in line with the securitisation of this profession identified in earlier research.