Resilience in the Age of Algorithmic Governance: Implications for Social Work and Welfare Systems
Technologies of governance, surveillance, and control have evolved over the course of human history and are transforming social work as they are deployed across a plurality of government, private sector organisations, and social media networks. In this article, we explore key issues associated with automated algorithmic governance in relation to social work education and practice, with particular attention to the implications for professional and institutional resilience. Focusing on the datafication of welfare governance, we trace its historical antecedents and applications, and provide a brief overview of digital automation and data-driven governance in Lithuania, Italy, the UK, and Spain. The aim is to identify issues that warrant further attention in social work curriculum design, particularly regarding the governance of state-financed social support services, and to argue that strengthening resilience requires social work to become more aware, technologically literate, and politically engaged in order to advocate for and support service users within increasingly digitally enabled and networked systems of control.
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