The Return of Things: Exploring “Moral-Material” Practice in Social Work

Social work is a profession centered on “people”, which has led to “things” being marginalized in its theoretical framework, with their inherent helping functions remaining undervalued and underexplored. Therefore, it is necessary to bring things back to the center of social work by explicating their roles and values in professional services, thereby constructing a practice model that integrates both ethical care and material sensitivity. The paper advances this argument through three dimensions:First, it clarifies the implications of the material turn in social sciences for social work theory, emphasizing that things are not merely instrumental resources but also agential social actors. Second, drawing on the concept of quasi-objects, it categorizes things in social work practice into natural objects, instrumental objects, relational objects, and symbolic objects, demonstrating their respective functions in professional services. Third, it reflects on the roots of social work theory's tendency to “see people but not things,” proposing that social work should transcend the singular “person-to-person” moral practice and move toward a more ethically inclusive “person-thing- context” “moral-material” practice. This approach not only expands the theoretical boundaries of social work but also provides practitioners with an integrative intervention framework.