SOCIAL WORK IN CONTEXT OF THEOLOGICAL REINTEGRATION WITH A VIEW UPON SOCIAL POLITICS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Abstract

UDK 364:2(497.6)

The first part of the article stresses upon the significance of social work as a practical and a scientific field. The author presents a complementary causal relation of social work, religion and spirituality through the definition given by the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) wherein the significance of social work is underlined in the light of the reality of contemporary society in globalised world. It emphasises values of social work which directed upon challenges of inequality and  injustice in society. At the very beginning, the author presents facts, referring to the significant number of authors and sources, where growing interest in spirituality and religion within the field of social work in the last few decades is recoreded. That interest is not only evident in social work as professional or scientific field, but also as a tendency of a broader culture and society to once again reflect upon religion and spirituality and to reintegrate these into every field and sphere of human life. Throughout the article, the field of social work is presented as based upon the principle of socially constructed activity as a part of complex theoretical and professional net of services and institutions and is viewed within the socio-cultural context of its partakers that constitute three fundamental roles: client, social worker and the surrounding within which these two meet. The author presents the view of reductionism and its damaging impact, on the bases of the development of the practice of social work and on its philosophical and theoretical foundation. The article also elaborates upon self-imposed integration of the professional social work and the spiritual aspect of the majority of citizens and how the spirituality helped preserve values like humanism, solidarity and justice. The second part of the article gives e review of the significance as well as of the distinctiveness of social politics and social protection in Bosnia and Herzegovina and of the crisis of a state of prosperity.