Praktisk teori - om relationen mellan (samhälls)teori och (det sociala arbetets) praktik

Sammanfattning: By letting Bourdieu’s (1977, 1990, 1995) theory of bodily and practical logic – with a broader sense of the agent’s acting space – meet the data extracted from four semi-structured interviews made with women working at ROKS’ women’s shelters, this thesis explores the interaction between social theory and practice in the contextual making of social work. Throughout this thesis I challenge that contextual framework, mainly by arguing that social theory is fundamental to the understanding of the client, social worker and social problems at the same time as the dynamical relationship between practice and (social) theory is active in the making itself. Furthermore, I argue that formulating the (theoretical) subject is a process linked with the understanding and reception of clients. This is illustrated also by the shared position as woman – and the sisterhood that this inspires – that by challenging the distance between social worker and client motivated a different kind of distancing, for example through class and ethnicity.