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Should we strain to squeeze out the last drops of life out of a failing, deteriorating and unjust system? Or should we instead devote our creative and collective energies towards envisioning and building a radically different form of living?聽鈥擥race Lee Boggs with Scott Kurashige (2012)

We are witnessing the increase in militarization worldwide (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2022). Currently, countries are spending a record number on militaries, police, prisons, and border detention centres. It鈥檚 no coincidence, then, that the eruptions of violence, genocide, and conflict feel never ending. It is also not coincidental that the predominant message is that we need a robust militarized state to feel safe. As ecosocial workers, however, we must ask the question 鈥� 鈥榳ho is safety meant for?鈥�

In a newly published article, Abolitionism and Ecosocial Work: Towards Equity, Liberation and Environmental Justice, we as ecosocial workers and abolitionists seek to investigate this question of safety through examining the intersections of ecosocial work, abolition activism, and environmental justice. Written by ASTRA ESR Amy Shackelford along with social work researchers Assistant Professor , Associate Professor , and Doctoral student , our goal was to pay tribute to the bold abolitionists, predominately women of color, who are paving the way to reimagining societies beyond the current carceral (punitive) state model. We can then understand abolitionism as, 鈥�Abolitionists aim to create a society free from oppression and exploitation, with complete economic, political and social equality. Abolition often centres on dismantling carceral institutions, limiting the power and scope of their influence and shifting resources away from carceral institutions and towards investments in marginalised communities鈥� (Shackelford et al., 2023, p.4). We argue that this intersects clearly with the ecosocial approach to social work, which calls on anti-oppressive social work strategies that further economic, environmental, and social justice, arguing that carceral state functions are harmful to both historically oppressed communities as well as the environment.

By highlighting three sites of abolition activism, militaries, prisons, and disinvested neighborhoods, we explore what abolition is teaching ecosocial workers. For example, militaries around the world are leaders in carbon emissions, prisons incarcerate disproportionate numbers of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) peoples while exposing them to environmental harms, and disinvested neighborhoods are over surveilled by police while being under resourced (Shackelford et al., 2023). We tie these examples to the pervasive white supremacist logic that props up systems of colonialism and harm. We point out that ecosocial workers should apply abolitionist thinking into every level of research and practice to address these structural injustices.

Conclusions of the article suggest the critical responsibility of social workers to understand the perpetuation of white supremacist, settler colonialism, and capitalism as a set of interconnected structures that continue to harm communities, specifically BIPOC communities, as well as the environment. We argue that social workers must incorporate the abolitionist lens into their research and practice to be authentically in relation with the ultimate goals of social work 鈥� to disrupt, to dismantle, and to reimagine.

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References

Boggs, G. L. and Kurashige, S. (2012) The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press.

Shackelford, A., Rao, S., Krings, A., & Frances, K. (2023). Abolitionism and ecosocial work: Towards equity, liberation and environmental justice. British Journal of Social Work, 00, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcad247

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (2022) 鈥榃orld Military Expenditure Passes $2 Trillion for the First Time鈥�, Press release, available online at: https://sipri.org/media/press-release/2022/world-military-expenditure-passes-2- trillion-first-time (accessed February 2, 2023).