Social Sustainability and Social Work Practice in Asia and the Pacific Rim

The rapid trend of globalization has brought with it a variety of sustainability challenges, including global climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty, and social inequalities, which are problems with unclear boundaries, complicated interrelated components, undefined parameters, contradictory values, and no single solution. Social work has a long-standing tradition of emphasizing the interaction of people and their environment. For this reason, the field of social work is one of the best-placed academic disciplines for studying the impact of environmental change on social systems, and should play an important role in developing strategies for mitigating and adapting to these environmental challenges. However, traditional social work tends to lack sustaining work and neglect globally interconnected social problems.

Combining case studies and country reports from around Asia with a theoretical framework for understanding sustainability concerns, this book aims to show how social work can play a valuable role in mitigating and adapting to environmental challenges and social sustainability. For social work to develop a meaningful and viable profession that addresses contemporary sustainability issues, it requires changes and transformation in paradigm, theories, strategies, social policy and social services that will facilitate a sustainable future for all mankind.

Alice M. L. Chong is Professor and Social Work Discipline Leader in the Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.

Iris Chi is the Chinese-American Golden Age Association/Frances Wu Chair for the Chinese Elderly at the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA.