Introduction

Social work is generally understood to be an essentially ‘local’ activity, rooted in the socio-economic conditions and political and legal systems of a particular country. Social workers generally intervene when problems occur at the interface between individuals, families and communities, and their environments. Some aspects of human functioning (including relationships) might be regarded as universal, but behaviours are likely to be affected by the cultural traditions of a whole society or by the norms of subgroups within it. Thus, there is an expectation that social workers ‘understand’ the local context and are ‘able to communicate with’ people in a particular locality.

However, over the past century, social work has been increasingly accepted as also having an international dimension and is, on occasion, even transnational in some of its practices. This has become more pronounced with the recognition of globalisation as a process that pervades all aspects of life in all societies (to a greater or lesser extent) and of the interdependency that ensues. Many social problems can now be understood as being global in scope – and perhaps having international origins – as well as having distinctive impacts on local populations (Healy and Link, 2012; Lyons et al, 2012; Lyons, 2015).

Migration, while not a new phenomenon, is a particular feature of contemporary life in relation to the scale of population mobility and the number of countries between which people now move. Distinctions are sometimes made between ‘asylum seekers’ (who may, in due course, qualify under United Nations [UN] definitions as refugees) and ‘economic migrants’, with the assumption that this is an unwanted move for the first group but a personal choice for the second, resulting in them being labelled as ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’ of official help. However, these are simplistic and unhelpful dichotomies as many people who leave their home countries can be regarded as being somewhere on a continuum of ‘forced migration’ from conflict, persecution and environmental causes through to crippling economic hardship. Migration, in turn, contributes to the interdependency of different countries, communities and families, while also persuading governments and international bodies to take steps to promote (or prevent) different forms of migration or the movement of particular groups or individuals (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al, 2014).