Knowledge and practical knowledge

Themes and objectives of the research

Sociology has considered work as situated activity due to the thrust, which other disciplines such as ethnomethodology, have had to face with respect to certain issues that have emerged especially from contemporary society labeled as a society of knowledge and practical knowledge. The work practice of the social worker constitutes a unit of analysis proposed in this book for the study of this work practice, understood as situated activity. The value of work, theoretical tools and methods for looking at work as a practical cognitive activity are still in a stage of reflection. But how to empirically study the practical knowledge of social workers? The objective of this book is to explore the way in which the work practice of social workers is expressed in a local contest Messina. The research was divided into related questions:

1. (a) how the work activity of social workers takes shape in terms of individuals and the internal organization of the structure;
2. (b) how the relationship between knowledge and practical knowledge affects professional vision, performance and the choices of action to be taken.

Let us start with a delimitation of the phenomenon we are interested in circumscribing: knowledge as a practical activity. We will then go on to address a methodology for analyzing work as knowledge work under the assumption that all activities, whether individual or collective, incorporate elements that give them a collective, that is, social, character. They are mediated by the body, language and objects anchored in the social dimension, responding to the activity of others and soliciting them. They are material and discursive practices. On the other hand, activities are concretely inscribed in social organization by means of collectives that help structure them through the definition of roles. Working therefore is a knowing how to do in situations, a knowing how to work together, weaving relationships between people, between other professionals and objects, languages, technologies and institutions. All these things, found in the social worker’s field of action, are partly given, partly to be sought, and partly missing, and must be brought together within a network that connects them in a meaningful way, that makes them together go together. This image recalls the activity of bricolage rather than that of planning. For this we will use concepts such as articulation work, relationship work, arbitrage, alignment. To give the idea that resources for action (material, communicative, etc.), must be activated and put into reaction in order to maintain a common orientation.

In particular, a specific finding that we believe is original to this investigation concerns an in-depth analysis of the work practice of social workers in services, in a local contest (Messina), oriented toward the reception of refugees and asylum seekers, as a process in which they bring to the table their practical knowledge necessary to carry out their work, including through coordination with other institutions.

To do so, we must start with some basic assumptions, salient to our research, which refer back to established findings in the international literature: