Rethinking qualitative social work: From Latin American reconceptualization to a Denzinian-inspired approach

In this essay we review the development of critical and radical social work in order to reflect on Denzin’s contributions in contrast to the Latin American movement to reconceptualize the discipline using the Chilean case as an example. The dialogues between Denzin, Freire and Boal are focused from the perspective of the enrichment of social work in their search to contribute to overcoming conditions of social injustice. It is established that Denzin’s ideas about social work in the seventh moment can be thought as a research program for the coming years. Firstly, we will trace Denzin’s presence in the critical trajectories of Social Work to locate his dialogue with Brazilian authors such as Paulo Freire (1921–1997) and Augusto Boal (1931–2009). Next, we will describe the emergence of the process of reconceptualization of social work formulated from our Latin American lands in the turbulent decades of the 60’s and 70’s. Thirdly, we will evaluate Denzin’s ethical proposals for social work from a perspective anchored to our Latin American reality by discussing and evaluating the eight interpretative criteria that Denzin (2002) proposed to strengthen critical qualitative social work.