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This chapter discusses seven key, cross-cutting themes related to obesity that have direct implications for social work: community participation, assets of marginalized communities, program evaluation, social justice and obesity, schools as part of the community, the role of social work, and cultural competence. These seven cross-cutting themes provide valuable insights for those in social work and other helping professions as they strive to gain an in-depth understanding of the rewards and challenges associated with having communities play an instrumental role in efforts to reduce and prevent excessive weight in urban communities of color. The chapter also considers the interconnectedness of values, theory, and field examples, the implications for social work practice, and the appropriateness of employing a social justice lens.

This chapter describes a social justice health promotion model that the social work profession must embrace in addressing obesity in undervalued or marginalized communities. It offers a more detailed definition of health promotion and identifies a set of values and principles, looks at health promotion interventions from a socioecological perspective, and considers the challenges in using evidence- and evaluation-based practice research. Each of these perspectives exerts a strong influence on how health promotion is conceived, implemented, and eventually evaluated for the obesity field. The most promising health promotion interventions actively seek to tap local knowledge and community participation in all phases of the intervention, while enhancing community capacity in the process of addressing local health concerns.

This chapter discusses the distinctive legacy of Catholic social action and the entrance of Latin American liberative models of praxis into community organizing in the late 1970s. By the 1970s, organizers of congregational-based communities were constructing new paradigms, drawing from both the civil rights movement's legacy and Catholic social justice traditions, especially the emergence of Latin American liberation theology. Congregational-based organizing is now grounded in the use of popular education models, which are particularly appropriate to the cultural predispositions of borderlands people. Indeed, for people living in marginalized communities who become leaders in congregational organizing, the use of popular education leads them to an awareness of the root cause of the ills affecting their communities, of God's commitment to justice, and of their own capacity to transform their collective well-being.

This chapter discusses family group conferences (FGCs) and marginalised communities. FGCs offer an alternative and more sustainable approach to working with families who are marginalised or socially excluded. Used in the right way, and with due regard paid to the culture and context in which families are living, FGCs are a powerful and effective intervention. The danger is that practitioners and services believe that it is automatically culturally competent, and they need to be aware that it operates as a framework that embraces culture if true partnerships are formed with families and they are empowered to make choices about the way that the model works for them. In order to do this, practitioners must be able to have conversations with families about their cultural beliefs, values, and practices and work with them to ensure that the FGC embodies this. Furthermore, FGCs have the potential to strengthen and build communities and social capital.

This chapter discusses the role of intersectional movement building with similarly marginalized communities, including feminist, LGBT, HIV/AIDS, labor, harm-reduction, and anti-poverty groups. This chapter highlights the role that intersectional activism with feminist organizers in Uganda and HIV organizers in Botswana played in the birth of sex worker movements in those countries, as well as the foundations and contours of the acute solidarity that exists between African sex worker and LGBT activists. It reflects on unique opportunities for inclusive movement building between African sex workers and human rights, labor, anti-poverty, and harm-reduction advocates.

In this chapter, Karen Frost-Arnold provides a close analysis of the epistemological challenges posed by context collapse in online environments and argues that virtue epistemology provides a helpful normative framework for addressing some of these problems. “Context collapse” is the blurring or merging of multiple contexts or audiences into one. Frost-Arnold identifies at least three epistemic challenges posed by context collapse. First, context collapse facilitates online harassment, which causes epistemic harm by decreasing the diversity of epistemic communities. Second, context collapse threatens the integrity of marginalized epistemic communities in which some types of true beliefs flourish. Third, context collapse promotes misunderstanding, as understanding relies on background knowledge which, in turn, is often context sensitive. Frost-Arnold then argues that we can cultivate and promote the epistemic virtues of trustworthiness and discretion in order to address some of these problems.

This chapter addresses how racially or ethnically marginalized and poor communities in the United States are likelier to be situated near landfills and pollution-producing industrial sites than majority white, affluent communities. This raises their exposure to harmful air particulates that impact lung and heart health. Particulate matter (PM) in the air is a combination of solid and liquid pollutants. In general, the smaller the particles, the more harmful they are to health. A 2018 report offers findings on the health impacts of disparate exposure to PM2.5, or particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter. Hispanic and black Americans tend to have a higher PM2.5 burden than their white counterparts. Similarly, those below the federal poverty line experience more exposure to PM2.5 than those with higher incomes. These data show how health is inextricably tied to place, race, and the economic composition of communities. Thus, identifying how these conditions intersect is key to creating a healthier world.

This chapter looks at the living conditions of migrants in Kuala Lumpur, noting that the country has performed relatively well in managing the infection rate of COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic. It focuses on the overcrowded conditions that migrants have to endure, especially if they reside in city centers close to jobs. It also equates contemporary responses to the COVID-19 pandemic among middle-class Malaysians to colonial European attitudes towards indigenous subjects. The chapter talks about the ten-kilometer radius that limited people's movements, which demonstrated the uneven distribution of resources and services. It describes Malaysia's intersection of medical practices and armed forces, marginalized communities and overcrowding, sanitation and the policing of space that are reminiscent of colonial methods of ordering space.

This chapter discusses the role of intersectional movement building with similarly marginalized communities, including feminist, LGBT, HIV/AIDS, labor, harm-reduction, and anti-poverty groups. This chapter highlights the role that intersectional activism with feminist organizers in Uganda and HIV organizers in Botswana played in the birth of sex worker movements in those countries, as well as the foundations and contours of the acute solidarity that exists between African sex worker and LGBT activists. It reflects on unique opportunities for inclusive movement building between African sex workers and human rights, labor, anti-poverty, and harm-reduction advocates.

This chapter analyzes the health divides in the United States, which unfold along economic, racial, and ethnic lines. These health divides reflect a core paradox of modernity—a world that is simultaneously far healthier than it has ever been and far less healthy than it could be. By bringing health inequalities to the surface, COVID-19 complicates the narrative of progress. Again and again in the US, one sees people sicken and die not just from the disease, but from a status quo which significantly increased their chance of catching the contagion or developing a more serious case of it. Indeed, it soon became clear that Black populations were significantly likelier to suffer from the virus than whites. Being owned as property, then being subject to generations of Jim Crow laws and the denial of full social and political rights, created for the Black community a level of disadvantage constituting a foundational flaw in the overall health of the country. If any good came from COVID-19, it was that the pandemic shattered the idea that the poor health faced by marginalized communities is merely the problem of those communities and that it is not fundamentally a product of the health inequities.

This chapter examines the rise of the Taliban of Kandahar and the networks and structures through which the members operate. Among the findings are that the Taliban's resurgence in Kandahar after 2001 was not inevitable or preordained; the Taliban leadership took advantage of growing disillusionment in the countryside; the Taliban developed an intricate shadow government apparatus; and the Taliban gained influence not only by winning support from marginalized communities and offering law and order, but through severe intimidation and widespread human rights abuses.

This chapter assesses the question of who joins a county line. Where do they come from? Why do they join? The chapter considers the concept of the Pool of Availability. The Pool of Availability comprises young people who have grown up in marginalised, vulnerable communities, and through a combination of habitus, social field, and social environment are now readily available and even conditioned to step into the street gang. Where street gangs become the logical answer to the prevailing conditions, the youth who affiliate to gangs do so as ‘rational agents’ joining ‘rational organisations’. The chapter offers case study insights from respondents articulating their lived experience of involvement and life inside a county line. It explores options for entry and types of role alongside the prerequisites for joining a county line crew, managing a line, and the logistics of getting staff to customers.

This chapter begins with an overview of the emergence of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, in particular, the clusters that spike up the infection rate. It then considers the regulations, laws, and socio-economic measures implemented by the Malaysian government. The chapter evaluates the effectiveness of these measures and the challenges faced by the government and the people in coping with this crisis, not just in seeking to reduce the number of positive cases but also in the larger context of democratic norms, human rights, and socio-economic justice. Chief among Malaysia’s measures to stem the spread of the pandemic is the Movement Control Order (MCO), which forces people to stay inside except to perform essential services, go out to buy food, or seek medical treatment. The MCO has been successful in some respects, particularly in flattening the curve, but in some areas, such as the rights of marginalized communities, clarity of instructions, and uniformity of enforcement, it has left much to be desired.

This chapter contains a brief biography and transcript of an interview with Abye Tasse, a leader in African social work education, who was awarded the Katherine Kendall Award of the International Association of Schools of Social Work in 2016, for his contribution to international social work education. A refugee from Ethiopia, he trained and worked as a social worker with migrants in marginalized communities in France. He was involved in developing practice education in Romania and social work education in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mauritius and Comoros. In Ethiopia, masters and doctoral education supported the development of staff to contribute to bachelor-level education. Research and practice in work with migrants have been important in his career. In the future, social work needs to focus on brotherhood as an important element of liberty and greater equality. The Global social development Agenda is an important basis for future progress in social work.