Genealogy of development: From the Repertory of Fables to Self-reflection for a Paradigm-engendered Change to Social Policy Based on Social Work

Abstract

This article presents a genealogical inquiry for development meant to disclose ties and implications for social policy. It references a notion that, based on fables and paradoxes, is captured by a neo-liberal model and a post-war (1945) capitalist market system. In other words, neoliberalism, (im)posed as the unquestionable way to and direction for development is set based more on market and capital logic and not a rapprochement with human rights. As a consequence, institutional mechanisms and neoliberal rationality permeate a social policy that brings together a broad list of professional and disciplinary interventions in social science. In other words, some specific ways for the society to defend itself are established, contradictorily, against a market system that is denied to it. To provide an example of this claim, one must start with Social Work to extrapolate diverse scenarios for thinking and doing in the Social Sciences. Finally, when faced with the possibility of opening lines of division, two considerations are floated that contribute to creating the bases for a new cosmovision. They are, then, the capacity for self-reflection, which is achieved based on an epistemological awareness that runs parallel to the ontological imperative and a conception of social policy for complexity.