Linking themes relating to rural and environmental social work: Towards integrated knowledge development

Abstract

The social work literature attests the profession’s transformative role in advancing environmental sustainability by shaping human interaction with the natural world and empowering individuals and communities to enact meaningful change to promote sustainable development. It does this through its attention to related issues concerning environmental justice, poverty, racism, sustainability, sustainable development and vulnerable populations. By highlighting problems in social work knowledge development around issues relating to the environment and examining recent reviews of related literature, this paper aims to show that a clearer picture on social work’s environmental engagement would emerge from consideration of linking themes integrating disparate strands of social work research and scholarship, especially those concerning environmentally-related issues and rural populations. It suggests linking themes to achieve more integrated knowledge development on environmental and rural social work.