Guest: Dr Dyann Ross, Senior Lecturer, Social Work, Program Coordinator for Master of Social Work (Qualifying) and Higher Degrees by Research, University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Australia Introduction to this episode The experience of the use of love and a love ethic within eco-social work practice has already been introduced by a previous guest in this series (Dr.Naomi Godden) and because these topics have been garnering considerable interest within the eco-social turn over the last few years I wanted to seek out further perspectives on the use of love by other leading eco-social work thinkers. My guest on this episode of the series, Dr. Dyann Ross, is a social work academic, researcher and author who has continued to focus on and help elaborate the place of love in social work practice over the last twenty years or so. In fact, she goes so far as to say that exploring the ethic of love has been her life journey and work. As with wider eco-social work (ESW) approaches, the use of love in social work practice has been slow to appear on the mainstream social work radar but is now finding a greater audience of practitioners willing to explore and adopt its precepts. And Dr Ross’s work has made an important contribution towards that adoption. In our discussion Dr Ross talks about her abiding interests in the importance of love and a love ethic for social work practice, and how a growing ethos of lovelessness for other people, non-human animals and Nature is a strong underlying causation of injustices and lack of ecological sustainability for the planet as a whole. The social work profession has an important contribution to make in helping right some of these wrongs, and we discuss the particular benefits the elements of a love ethic (ethics of love, non-violence and ecological justice) can bring to this important work. INTERVIEW TALKING POINTS: with approximate time elapsed location in minutes. General introduction – 0.50 Guest self-introduction – 2.45 How does a love ethic fit within contemporary eco-social practice? - 8.45 How can a love ethic help tackle ecological sustainability concerns? - 15.30 Why should the social work mainstream be involved with a love ethic within ESW practice? - 21.13 What could/should the future hold for the use of a love ethic in SW practice? - 25.15 The contribution of a multi and interdisciplinarity stance within ESW – 31.35 Guest take home message -35.23 Closing remarks - 38.16 End - 40.36 RESOURCES RELEVANT TO OR MENTIONED IN THE DISCUSSION: DR DYANN ROSS – some selected publications Her doctorate research On the place of an ethic of love in social work education (awarded 2002) Books: Brueckner, M. & Ross, D. (2010). Under corporate skies: A struggle between people, place and profit. Fremantle: Fremantle Press. –inter alia, analysis of the social, health and environmental concerns surrounding aluminium refining impacts on the small town of Yarloop in Western Australia Ross, D. (2020). The revolutionary social worker: The love ethic model. Brisbane: Revolutionaries. Ross, D., Brueckner, M., Palmer. M. & Eaglehawk, W. (Eds.). (2020). Eco-activism and social work: New directions in leadership and group work. London: Routledge. Other Work Ross, D. (2020). ‘Ethic of love’, International encyclopedia of sustainable management. S. Idowu, R. Schmidpeter, N. Capaldi, L. Zu, M. Del Baldo, & R. Abreu (Eds.). Switzerland: Springer Reference. Book chapter contribution by Ross, D., Bennett, B. & Menyweather, N. (2020). Towards a critical posthumanist social work: Trans-species ethics of ecological justice, nonviolence and love. In B. Pease & V. Bozalek (Eds.). Post-anthropocentric social work: Critical posthumanism and new materialist perspectives (pp. 175-186). London: Routledge. Mental Health Gates, T. G., Ross, D., Bennett, B., & Jonathan, K. (2022) Teaching Mental Health and Well-Being Online in a Crisis: Fostering Love and Self-compassion in Clinical Social Work Education (2021) OTHER LOVE ETHIC RESEARCHER/PRACTITIONERS: Dr Naomi Godden – Edith Cowan University Australia – publication record (and listen to her episode in this podcast series) CODES OF ETHICS REVISION The AASW Code of Ethics (2020) Thomas Ryan (2011) - suggestions for expanding ethical codes and a morally inclusive social work. ANIMAL RIGHTS AND ETHICS ADVOCACY Book review for Algers, K. (2020). Five essays for freedom: A political primer for animal advocates. Brisbane: Revolutionaries. The Animal Industrial Complex - concept ANTHROPOCENTRISM AND ECOCENTRISM worldviews as they influence human-nature relationships bell hooks - Teaching to Transgress (2014) ECO-SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE – HISTORY OF PRINCIPLES AND IDEAS Besthorn (2011) deep ecological social work Peeters (2011) The place of social work in sustainable development Norton (2011 Social work and the environment: an ecosocial approach Dominelli (2018) The Routledge Book of Green Social ...
