Summary

Scapegoating is a ubiquitous, yet pernicious, phenomenon in today’s world. It manifests in innumerable ways. Social work, in line with its emancipatory value-base, seeks to engage with various scapegoated groups to challenge the experience. In this article, the authors draw on critical realism and mimetic theory to elucidate the causative mechanisms fuelling scapegoating. This is done in order to heighten social workers’ insight into the process and empower targeted groups.

Findings

Mimetic theory highlights that scapegoating is a product of desire, rivalry and deflection. These are deep-seated mechanisms that are compatible with critical realist ontology and its search for causative properties in the social world. It is argued that critical realism augments mimetic theory by setting it within a much wider and deeper context of understanding. As such, it emphasizes intersecting causes and contingencies such as the role of temporal and spatial factors shaping the scapegoating experience.

Applications

Social workers can transform these theoretical insights into sensitizing constructs when they facilitate self-directed groupwork with scapegoated groups. Being theoretically informed, they can pose critical questions to group members to assist them to make the link between personal problems and political issues. The aim is to empower these groups so that they can embrace the sociological imagination and act for change.

中文翻译：

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批判现实主义、模仿理论和社会工作

概括

替罪羊是当今世界普遍存在但有害的现象。它以无数的方式表现出来。社会工作与其解放的价值基础相一致，寻求与各种背黑锅的群体接触，以挑战这种体验。在本文中，作者利用批判现实主义和模仿理论来阐明助长替罪羊的因果机制。这样做是为了提高社会工作者对这一过程的洞察力并赋予目标群体权力。

发现

模仿理论强调，替罪羊是欲望、竞争和偏转的产物。这些是根深蒂固的机制，与批判现实主义本体论及其在社会世界中寻找因果属性相兼容。有人认为，批判现实主义通过将模仿理论置于更广泛和更深入的理解背景中来增强模仿理论。因此，它强调交叉的原因和偶然性，例如塑造替罪羊体验的时间和空间因素的作用。

应用

当社会工作者促进与替罪羊群体进行自我指导的集体合作时，他们可以将这些理论见解转化为敏感结构。在理论上了解情况后，他们可以向小组成员提出关键问题，以帮助他们将个人问题与政治问题联系起来。目的是赋予这些群体权力，使他们能够接受社会学的想象力并为变革采取行动。