Jun 17, 2022
Using a love ethic model within eco-social work practice
Guest: Dr Dyann Ross, Senior Lecturer, Social Work, Program Coordinator for Master of Social Work (Qualifying) and Higher Degrees by Research, University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Australia
Introduction to this episode
The experience of the use of love and a love ethic within eco-social work practice has already been introduced by a previous guest in this series (Dr.Naomi Godden) and because these topics have been garnering considerable interest within the eco-social turn over the last few years I wanted to seek out further perspectives on the use of love by other leading eco-social work thinkers.
My guest on this episode of the series, Dr. Dyann Ross, is a social work academic, researcher and author who has continued to focus on and help elaborate the place of love in social work practice over the last twenty years or so. In fact, she goes so far as to say that exploring the ethic of love has been her life journey and work. As with wider eco-social work (ESW) approaches, the use of love in social work practice has been slow to appear on the mainstream social work radar but is now finding a greater audience of practitioners willing to explore and adopt its precepts. And Dr Ross’s work has made an important contribution towards that adoption.
In our discussion Dr Ross talks about her abiding interests in the importance of love and a love ethic for social work practice, and how a growing ethos of lovelessness for other people, non-human animals and Nature is a strong underlying causation of injustices and lack of ecological sustainability for the planet as a whole. The social work profession has an important contribution to make in helping right some of these wrongs, and we discuss the particular benefits the elements of a love ethic (ethics of love, non-violence and ecological justice) can bring to this important work.
INTERVIEW TALKING POINTS: with approximate time elapsed location in minutes.
General introduction – 0.50
Guest self-introduction – 2.45
How does a love ethic fit within contemporary eco-social practice? - 8.45
How can a love ethic help tackle ecological sustainability concerns? - 15.30
Why should the social work mainstream be involved with a love ethic within ESW practice? - 21.13
What could/should the future hold for the use of a love ethic in SW practice? - 25.15
The contribution of a multi and interdisciplinarity stance within ESW – 31.35
Guest take home message -35.23
Closing remarks - 38.16
End - 40.36
RESOURCES RELEVANT TO OR MENTIONED IN THE DISCUSSION:
DR DYANN ROSS – some selected publications
Her doctorate research
On the place of an ethic of love in social work education (awarded 2002)
Books:
Brueckner, M. & Ross, D. (2010). Under corporate skies: A struggle between people, place and profit. Fremantle: Fremantle Press. –inter alia, analysis of the social, health and environmental concerns surrounding aluminium refining impacts on the small town of Yarloop in Western Australia
Ross, D. (2020). The revolutionary social worker: The love ethic model. Brisbane: Revolutionaries.
Ross, D., Brueckner, M., Palmer. M. & Eaglehawk, W. (Eds.). (2020). Eco-activism and social work: New directions in leadership and group work. London: Routledge.
Other Work
Ross, D. (2020). ‘Ethic of love’, International encyclopedia of sustainable management. S. Idowu, R. Schmidpeter, N. Capaldi, L. Zu, M. Del Baldo, & R. Abreu (Eds.). Switzerland: Springer Reference.
Book chapter contribution by Ross, D., Bennett, B. & Menyweather, N. (2020). Towards a critical posthumanist social work: Trans-species ethics of ecological justice, nonviolence and love. In B. Pease & V. Bozalek (Eds.). Post-anthropocentric social work: Critical posthumanism and new materialist perspectives (pp. 175-186). London: Routledge.
Mental Health
Gates, T. G., Ross, D., Bennett, B., & Jonathan, K. (2022) Teaching Mental Health and Well-Being Online in a Crisis: Fostering Love and Self-compassion in Clinical Social Work Education (2021)
OTHER LOVE ETHIC RESEARCHER/PRACTITIONERS:
Dr Naomi Godden – Edith Cowan University Australia – publication record
(and listen to her episode in this podcast series)
CODES OF ETHICS REVISION
The AASW Code of Ethics (2020)
Thomas Ryan (2011) - suggestions for expanding ethical codes and a morally inclusive social work.
ANIMAL RIGHTS AND ETHICS ADVOCACY
Book review for Algers, K. (2020). Five essays for freedom: A political primer for animal advocates. Brisbane: Revolutionaries.
The Animal Industrial Complex - concept
ANTHROPOCENTRISM AND ECOCENTRISM worldviews as they influence human-nature relationships
bell hooks - Teaching to Transgress (2014)
ECO-SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE – HISTORY OF PRINCIPLES AND IDEAS
Besthorn (2011) deep ecological social work
Peeters (2011) The place of social work in sustainable development
Norton (2011 Social work and the environment: an ecosocial approach
Dominelli (2018) The Routledge Book of Green Social Work
Gray, Coates and Hetherington (2013) Environmental social work
Molyneux (2010); The Practical Realities of Ecosocial Work: A Review of the Literature
Tischler (2011) Master level thesis: Climate change and social work : steps to an eco-social work practice
Boetto (2019) Advancing transformative eco-social change: Shifting from modernist to holistic foundations
Michael Kim Zapf (2009) modifying the social work, the ecological imagination and other work
FIRST NATION LEADERS INSIGHTS FOR SUSTAINABILITY IN SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE.
Book chapter: Woodley, M. & Ross, D. (2021). First Nation leaders’ lessons on sustainability and the environment for social work. In B. Bennett (Ed.). Aboriginal fields of practice (pp. 216-228). London, UK: Red Globe Press.
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND PSYCHOLOGY INSIGHTS INTO A CULTURE OF LOVELESSNESS AND THE CAUSATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION:
Book: Weintrobe, S. (2021). Psychological roots of the climate crisis: Neoliberal exceptionalism and the culture of uncare. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Book: What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming (2015) some insights into psychological defence mechanisms around climate change and how to counter them - from Norwegian psychologist and economist Per Espen Stoknes.
Psychology for a Safe Climate group (Australia) some great resources on the psychological/ cognitive biases acting to constrain effective action on environmental protection and repair, and how they can be overcome.
‘Wicked problems’ – significance
GUEST AND CONTACT DETAILS:
Guest: Dyann Ross -see her contacts in USC publication record
Householders’ Options to Protect the Environment (HOPE):
T 07 4639 2135 E office@hopeaustralia.org.au WEB FACEBOOK
Production:
Produced for HOPE by Andrew Nicholson E: counsel1983@gmail.com
T: +61 413979414
This episode recorded in Toowoomba, S.E. Queensland, Australia on 7th June 2022.
Artwork: Daniela Dal'Castel Incidental Music: James Nicholson