“Making every individual count in terms of capital production”: The strategic use of early prevention sciences in child protection social work policy and practice in Aotearoa

Abstract

In recent decades child protection knowledge has been informed by advances in neuroscience, epigenetics, and a newer field called the developmental origins of health and disease. This thesis explores how these ‘early prevention sciences’ (EPS) are operationalised in child protection social work policy and practice in Aotearoa during the 2010s. Patricia Hill Collins’ notion of the ‘intellectual activist’ is used to orientate the work toward social justice goals. This thesis is theoretically oriented, centring intersectionality and theories of epistemic power, to enhance understanding of how different knowledges, such as EPS, are (in)validated. I developed the ‘episto-kyriarchy’ concept to explain how different epistemological regimes intersect and (sm)other alternative hermeneutical resources. Four regimes were hypothesised to feature in EPS use (scientism, risk, settler colonialism, and neoliberalism), with likely racist, sexist and classist consequences for Māori and those multiply oppressed. Data included interviews with 24 statutory child protection social workers and policy documents from the 2010s. Intersectionally informed reflexive thematic analysis was used to develop a story, which allowed for a situated reading. Practitioner and policy accounts analysis showed that EPS informs both. Such use creates certain subject positions for children, parents, and social workers. Further, EPS use serves to uphold the hypothesised epistemological regimes. Children are constructed as raw materials, human becomings, to be managed for their potential to add to a future neoliberal economy. Parents are decontexualised and responsibilised, leaving them accountable for anything impairing their children’s potential — including structural oppressions like colonisation. This responsibilisation allows for government minimisation and responsibilises parents for a thriving future economy. Social workers are expected, in policy, to defend the capitalist state through EPS use; however, they express mixed acceptance and resistance. The capitalist state is protected through authoritarian management and responsibilisation of parents to ensure the protection of raw capital (children). The means (uncritical EPS use) justifies the end (capitalism). Findings suggest implications for social work practice, education, policy and research. All involve exploring the epistemological foundations of knowledge and using and un(sm)othering alternative hermeneutical resources. Finally practical ways of making policy and practice more intersectionally inclusive and socially just are suggested.