Re-imagining social work beyond the human: A post-anthropocentric and antispeciesist proposal

This article argues that in the twenty-first century, it would be desirable for social work to open itself to a bolder and more creative new imaginary, which is capable of moving it away from an anthropocentric paradigm towards a more-than-human social work. Despite the growing attention to ecological issues, social work continues to reproduce an anthropocentric orientation, in which more-than-human animals remain marginal and, if they are present, they are considered as resources or tools for human well-being rather than as subjects of justice. For this reason, the article proposes the adoption of a post-anthropocentric and antispeciesist approach, considering speciesism as an axis of oppression and advancing a critique of the humanist roots of social work. In particular, this paper proposes a post-anthropocentric and antispeciesist re-interpretation of Boetto’s transformative eco-social model, showing how it can provide a basis for imagining new practices of multispecies justice.