Editorial.

CargoEditorial

The Editorial Team of Em Pauta: teoria social e realidade contemporanea --the journal of the Faculdade de Servico Social at UERJ--is pleased to present issue number 40, of the second half of 2017, part of Volume 15, with the theme The Social Work in History. Based on contemporary challenges to social work by the capital, it contemplates the different temporal stages in the trajectory of the profession, imbricated in the historical particularity of the considered countries, whose rhythms are not linear. It intends to revisit critically the history of the profession already narrated and systematized theoretically, based on results of research on memory and the history of social work as a discipline and work specialization, both in Latin American countries--especially Brazil--and in countries of Iberian Europe and North America.

This volume of the journal expresses the academic resistance to the dismantling of the Public University that has been perpetrated by the state and federal governments, severely affecting the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the eighth best Brazilian university, which is suffering in agony for more than two years. Its rich intellectual life is the result of the resistance of its teachers, students, and staff in the performance of its primary functions of teaching, research and extension, preserving the levels of academic excellence. The intellectual exchange and relations of national and international cooperation with similar centers are also shown in this issue of the journal, with an active role by the Faculdade de Servico Social.

The world and national scenario under the auspices of finance announces a significant advance of conservative reaction in the economic, political, and cultural dimensions. Social inequalities, relations of economic subordination and political domination between central and peripheral countries, accentuating dependence and war violence, grow. Ethnic-racial and gender intolerance, and the naturalization of attacks on human rights grow worse, with the international immigration to Europe being exemplary. Large economic groups allied with financial powers strive for the spoliation of natural resources in an attempt to control mineral wealth, water resources, biodiversity, soil, and outer space, all for their insatiable hunger for the accumulation of riches. Neo-Nazi and neo-fascist ideologies are expanding just as the manifestations of denunciation and repulsion to neoliberal policies that concentrate income, wealth, and power intensify, in defense of justice, equality, freedom of thought and organization, human rights and social policies.

In this regressive framework, sketched in broad lines, the re-reading of the history and memory of social work is the bearer of renewing winds of resistance in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its roots date back to the mid-sixties, expressed in the Reconceptualization Movement of Latin American social work, a unit of diversities, taking into account national particularities. In the same time span, similar initiatives emerged in Europe and North America, consubstantiated in the so-called critical social work and radical social work, with which a beneficial dialogue is established. This is the subject of the first part of the Thematic Dossier: The Social Work in History that contemplates the partial production, condensed in eight articles, fruit of an international cooperation of researchers under the leadership of the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro associated with the Federal University of Juiz de Fora. They are part of the research network involved in the project: The Movement of Reconceptualization of Social Work in Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia): historical determinants, international interlocutions and memory. Research project, UERJ/CNPQ: Rio de Janeiro, Feb. 2016. (1) Attached to this first group, which totals 9 articles, is Vicente de Paula Faleiros's article, Reconceptualization of Social Work: process and movement of Catholic University of Valparaiso's "Escuela de Trabajo Social", given the thematic similarity.

The article Social contestation movements in Ibero-European and North American Social Work from 1960 to 1980 opens the thematic dossier. It is an approximation between Ibero-European (Portugal and Spain) and North American (Canada and USA) social work, which brings unprecedented elements for the interaction between Latin American social work and the trajectory and the social contestation expressions of the profession in other countries. It seeks to identify the theoretical-methodological references of the social worker in the analyzed countries, their links with social contestation movements and the relations between critical and/or radical social work and the movement of Latin American reconceptualization.

The analysis of the social work in Portugal, contained in the article Social Work in Portugal during fascism: opposition, resistance and union action, intends to grasp the meaning attributed by fascism to the profession in the process of its institutionalization (1930-1950); and to identify social workers who became involved in opposition and resistance movements to the regime, from which they departed from the corporatist trade union organization in the 1960s and 1970s.

The article Social Work in the Spanish scenario from 1960 to 1980: in search of self-definition and professional recognition proceeds to a preliminary analysis of the social contestation movements present in Spanish social work (1960-1980), emphasizing internal and international political processes in Spanish society from the fifties on. The Latin American reconceptualization movement was not generalized in the professional environment. However, it influences politicized and progressive segments that seek theoretical production and action proposals in tune with the national historical process.

The reconceptualization movement in Chile, given its importance, is contemplated with three studies. The first, "Unpacking" stories: Social Work and social struggles in Chile (1970-1973), places social work at a juncture in which organizational forces of the working class--left parties and social movements--have led Chile to be the first country in the world to conquer government by the electoral route, with a program of building socialism. The article explains the Chilean conjuncture of the Popular Unity (UP) government and social work relations with social organizations and movements, evidenced in research based on original sources. The second article, Reconceptualization of Social Work: process and movement of Catholic University of Valparaiso's "Escuela de Trabajo Social", deals with the paradigm shift of functional social Work in the course of the reconceptualization process experienced by this school (1970-1973) in the context of the Chilean experience of transition to socialism with freedom and of articulation with Marxism. This article was written based on personal narrative and period documents. The experience points to an articulation of social work with political action committed to the transformation of dominance relations. The third article, Disputes in the construction of reconceptualized Social Work at the Catholic University of Valparaiso (1966-1973), presents the project of this school, elucidating the relations between university education...

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