Dilemmas and potentials of corporate social work

Abstract

Corporate social work in Latin America is not a recent phenomenon; its development, however, is extremely limited in some countries, while in others it has a strong presence, coexisting with professional initiatives under the action of the State, but with limited or no reflection on its development, strengths and limitations. This article presents some introductory reflections that contribute to the understanding of this professional experience. For this purpose, it initially contextualizes Latin American social work from its genesis in the 1920s, to analyze then corporate transformations experienced since the 1950s, and to finally focusing on the emergence of neoliberalism since the 1970s, a period that marked a change of direction in the expressions of the profession. Social work has been incorporated into these transformations in various forms, either from the state structure, from liberal social work, from the companies, or from the third sector, a space for corporate social responsibilities and the so-called corporate social work. It finally reflects on the dilemmas and possibilities of the profession in this space of professional intervention.