[Articles] Atmospheres of Trust: Understanding Social Work in Swiss Prisons

19 March, 2026 Leave a comment
Martin Böhnel, Julia Emprechtinger and Marina Richter (2025)

Prisons are usually described as spaces of institutional mistrust. In an ethnographic study on social work in Swiss prisons, we experienced several moments when we felt that there was “trust in the air”. Inspired by phenomenological and post- humanist thinking, we take these moments as entry points to explore trust in prison. We aim to understand how atmospheres of trust emerge and how they affect the relational work between social workers and incarcerated people. For social work, it seems pivotal to acknowledge the affective power of material and immaterial elements to co-create together with (non-)human elements atmospheres of trust as a basis for relational work.

Keywords: social work, post-humanism, prison, atmospheres of trust

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[Articles] Digital Media and Children’s Well-Being in Residential Care

16 August, 2025 Leave a comment
Marion Pomey, Michele Wang and Carina Pohl (2025)

This article analyzes data from a qualitative study that aims to investigate the well-being and vulnerability of children and adolescents in residential care. The empirical findings focus on the importance of digital media for children’s and adolescents’ well-being from their perspectives. The results highlight how smartphones enable more possibilities and the creation of digital spaces for the creation and maintenance of well-being, emphasizing social relationship as the basis for autonomy, identity, safety and agency. It also reveals the importance for vulnerability associated with digital media, including unwanted attention and harassment. The results call for a balanced approach of providing protection but still maintaining participation and thus cautioning against excessive control and punitive measures regarding digital media in residential care.

Keywords: alternative care, digitalization, well-being, vulnerability, childhood studies

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[Call] Call for papers (until 30.04.2024)

17 October, 2023
Call: Post-Humanismus und Soziale Arbeit? Empirische und theoretische Erkundungen. / Call: Post-humanisme et travail social ? Explorations empiriques et théoriques. / Call: Post-humanism and Social Work? Empirical and theoretical explorations.

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[Articles] The analysis of non-take-up. Beyond the service relation model.

30 June, 2018

Service relations are not systematically fluid, and resistance is sometimes encountered in cases of non-take-up. The service relation model fails to take this into account. Therefore, as service agents’ work consists in dealing with users’ relations not only with themselves, but also with the offer, the analysis of non-take-up of rights and services requires a specific analytical model. This model would need to take users into account along with their relations to the offer and the normative content of that offer, over and above its delivery. In this respect, the social relation to the service model is more appropriate.

Author(s): Philippe Warin

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[Articles] Does secondary labour market improve the individual quality of life? Evidence from an empirical evaluation.

31 December, 2016

Background: A secondary labour market has developed in Switzerland during the last decades thanks to the joint initiative of public administrations and non-profit organisations. The main goal of the secondary market is the work integration and the social inclusion of “hard-to-place” unemployed people.

Aim: To evaluate the impact of secondary labour market on the individual quality of life.

Design: The study draws on three waves of observational data coming from a panel of 110 social assistance recipients in Canton Ticino.

Measures: Seven indicators of psychological, physical, social and material well-being.

Method: The statistical analyses are carried out by means of hybrid random effects linear regression models.

Results: We recorded a positive effect on the psychological and the financial dimensions of well-being. Surprisingly, the average impacts on physical well-being and social support are negative.

Author(s): Gregorio Alivés

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[Articles] “It is an individual choice”. Experiences of highly qualified stay-at-home mothers in Dublin.

30 June, 2015

The following contribution relies on the testimony of women themselves to expose and unpick a uni-dimensional focus on choice – to work or stay at home – to illustrate the multi-layered and complex set of factors that influence women’s decisions relating to work and caring. While based on a small sample that cannot be generalized from, the discussion of the outcomes gives strong evidence to the importance of looking beyond what first appear to be straightforward choices to critiquing the complex inter-play of factors that shape these “choices.” Such are e. g. structural or ideological reasons as decision-making factors for becoming a Stay-at-Home Mother.

Author(s): Simone Tappert, Evelyn Mahon

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