Looking east: (Re-)creating a social work ‘industry’ in the People’s Republic of China

The article furnishes a critical commentary on social work in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It is maintained that it is important to contextualise this development by taking into account the restoration of capitalism and wider structures of governance. Although there is no perfect alignment, it is argued that the (re-)creation of social work occurred during the same period when a Chinese proletariat was (re-)created. Drawing on the work of Antonio Gramsci and resisting a reductively mechanistic interpretation of the profession’s evolution, it is maintained that social work’s new centrality in the PRC can be best understood if it is situated alongside the hegemonic project of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to construct, what is referred to as, the ‘harmonious society’. The article concludes by tentatively identifying the emerging contours of social work with distinctive Chinese traits.

Cultural Dimension of Rule of Law and Social Episteme

Rule of Law, despite being subject to wide attention and acceptance without any dispute, has enough ground to be critically analyzed from dimension and dynamism of the cultural practice of every concerned country adhering to the norm. Since social episteme of the country is perfectly and variably unique to each other, no exact notion regarding rule of law can be imported and exported like a business commodity. Thus, this paper, in detail, sheds ideas on difference of rule of law in oriental and occidental jurisprudence. Deeming the harmonious society with stable peace as fi nal outcome of rule of law, this very paper builds an alternatively concrete insight on rule of law that befi ts the change of time and essence of divergent societies.