Disrupting, destabilising and declassifying: Jacques Rancière’s potential contribution to social work

Jacques Rancière’s main philosophical thematic preoccupations stem from an understanding that human beings are equal in all respects. This article is a short introduction to key conceptual formulations central within his diverse body of work. Rancière prompts us to think more critically about how people are apt to be fixed in particular political and cultural locations. His philosophical perspective on ‘police’ and ‘politics’ pivots on a subversive endeavour to dis-order dominant ways of perceiving the world and the roles which groups and individuals are expected to fulfil. Rancière also furnishes a range of concepts which can be fruitfully disruptive of particular fields and the more encompassing economic and political frameworks in which they are located. On account of his engagement with these themes, it is argued that Rancière’s work may aid social workers’ critical reflection.