Everyday acts of resistance: How social workers counter harmful and restrictive asylum policies

Abstract In social work practice with forced migrants, such as with other people experiencing extreme marginalization, practitioners are constantly confronted with the question of how to act in light of restrictive and unethical policies. While professional resistance can offer an avenue for practice, it has not been sufficiently integrated and explored within the field of social work and forced migration. Moreover, the existing literature tends to favour macro/political resistance over micro/everyday resistance. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing practice examples of everyday resistance in social work with refugees. Building on the secondary analysis of data collected in two qualitative studies, which included in-depth interviews with social workers in Australia, Israel, and Germany, three main resistance strategies are presented: non-reporting, rule-bending/rule-breaking, and relationship-based resistance. Altogether, these examples of everyday acts to counter harmful policies, which take place outside the public sphere, contribute to the debate on the vital role of the small-scale and mundane aspects of resistance. We conclude by discussing the ethical and practical aspects of everyday resistance and its contribution to social work practice and education.