It is a new world, a different world, a world that demands new responses and major changes
on the international, national, professional and personal levels. . . . We have come to
live, as some have said, in a global village. The earth has become small and the peoples
of the world so intimately cross-joined that all of us are deeply affected by events
occurring in distant corners of the world, and people in those corners are affected by us.
. . . Economic, social, political, domestic, international, and ecological issues are
intricately bound in an ever-escalating, lethal cycle. (Hartman, 1994, p. 66)Sophisticated
communications and transportation networks make the world seem smaller. The technologies
that have helped unify the world have made us aware that the world is increasingly
interdependent: Many social problems are no longer personal or local or national, they are
global in scope. Human distress caused by crime, drugs, terrorism, pollution, war,
poverty, and disease knows no national borders.
Violence, in particular, is a pervasive, growing problem of critical importance. From
the teenager in Los Angeles or El Salvador to the mother in Washington, DC, or the Sudan
to the infant in New York City or India, violence affects millions of people worldwide.
Like other social problems, violence cannot be solved without acknowledging and
understanding the complexities of global interdependence. This book emphasizes the
importance of working for global peace and development by examining parallel conditions of
violence in the United States and in less economically developed countries and by
identifying issues of interdependence and common solutions.
The book is based on the following convictions:
- Global interdependence is a fact of life that cannot be ignored.
- Violence, whether in Baltimore or Bangladesh, must be conceptualized in systemic and not
just individual terms, because a cycle of violence operates through a complex of cultural
and institutional arrangements.
- Preventive investments that shore up social infrastructures are more fiscally and
ethically responsible than crisis management or punishment-oriented approaches to problems
of violence.
- Breaking the cycle of violence requires development strategies that are holistic,
multidimensional, community based and directed, and, ultimately, sustainable by local
people.
- Homegrown strategies to address the causes and effects of violence must be retrieved and
exchanged and new methods must be devised to share learning and tell stories about what
works and why. Internationally, for example, we can learn from projects such as the
Self-Employed Women's Association in India, which is based on the premise that, instead of
welfare, poor women need to organize for empowerment and access to credit; a grassroots
community's approach to healing from the trauma of civil war in Nicaragua; a
microenterprise program in Kenya that has been used as an example followed by the mayor's
office in Baltimore; and a community development center for Palestinian and Arab children
and young parents in East Jerusalem that has survived despite ethnic conflict and fragile
political sensibilities.
- An informed, professional social work voice for social and economic justice is critical
in a political climate characterized by a drawbridge mentality toward the rest of the
world and a short-sighted view of issues ranging from crime and violence to poverty and
foreign aid.
Grounded in the above tenets, this book seeks to expand the frame of professional
social work discourse within which violence is defined, its contexts analyzed, and its
prevention and amelioration explored. To that end, it broadens the definition of violence
and links it with individual, social, and economic development; focuses on violence as a
global affliction; examines the parallel conditions and causes of violence in the United
States and in less economically developed countries; and proposes the development of
communities, using sustainable human development strategies, as a powerful antidote to
violence.
The book is primarily about making connections: between the United States and less
economically developed countries, between violence and development, and among different
levels of violence. The themes of connectedness and interdependence are emphasized
throughout. "Lessons without borders" is the phrase that best represents the
book's approach to shared solutions to violence. Sustainable human development strategies
that provide evidence of promising practices and problem-solving techniques, both in the
global South and in the United States, are showcased.
This book is divided into parts that explore relationships between violence and
development or maldevelopment within specific contexts: poverty, gender violence and
violence against children, ethnicity, drugs, and trauma. One chapter in each part
addresses the global link of problems and what we know from observing those problems in
the United States and in less economically developed countries; other chapters examine
what the United States can learn from other countries' experiences with those problems and
what role social workers can play in addressing the problems. In particular, these
questions are asked and answered:
- What are the similarities and differences between social problems in the United States
and those in less economically developed countries?
- How do problems in less economically developed countries affect the United States and
vice versa?
- What lessons can we learn from the efforts of other countries to solve problems similar
to ours?
- What can social workers do to help?
The "resources" section at the end of the book, which lists organizations and
publications concerned with the subjects addressed throughout the book, can be consulted
for further information.
Reference
Hartman, A. (1994). Our global village. In A. Hartman (Ed.), Reflection
and controversy: Essays on social work (pp. 65-70). Washington, DC: NASW Press.
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