Paul Michael Garrett (2018) Welfare Words, Critical Social Work and Social Policy, London, SAGE 

‘Rigorous, meticulously researched and edgy, Garrett’s new book seeks to understand the ideology underlying welfare words and by doing so, exposes the power and oppression operating through them. Read this book; it is the antidote to those who say that social work cannot be both a deeply intellectual and social justice-engaged endeavour’.

Donna Baines, University of Sydney, Australia

‘This is an engaging and engaged revisiting of the cultural excavation of ‘keywords’ pioneered by Raymond Williams. Garrett presents an impassioned and thorough dissection of some of the most important ‘keywords’ of our time, the highly coded lexicon of so-called welfare reform. What you will learn about the histories of containment and struggle sedimented within each term will enrage and energise – get reading, get angry, get ready’.

Gargi Bhattacharyya, University of East London, England

‘Paul Michael Garrett's important new book highlights the power of language when it comes to social welfare. Focusing on some of the most crucial keywords of welfare discourse in the neoliberal era, he plots their politics, illuminating their complicity in enacting disciplinary practices of client subordination, but also how their incompleteness leaves an opening for resistance and revision. His politically engaged linguistic interventions help us think about how to take steps toward less oppressive and more affirmative forms of service provision. This is a must read for social workers and social theorists alike, especially if they are interested in moving beyond the strictures of neoliberalism's oppressive disciplinary regime’.

Sanford F. Schram, Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY), United States

‘Paul Michael Garrett’s Welfare Words takes a modern, fresh look at the language of welfare. He calls upon the reader to re-visit the impact of language upon welfare choices and interventions and in doing so makes an accessible and relevant call to arms to challenge inequality and social exclusion. This book will be the go-to text for students of social work and social policy for many years to come. It is an outstanding text and highly recommended’.

Lel Meleyal, University of Sussex, England

‘A must-read for critical social policy theorists but also for anyone alarmed at how neoliberal capitalism has stigmatized every aspect of social rights. Garrett’s lens of analysis of welfare keywords – dependency, underclass, social exclusion, resilience ‒ brings out sharply how neoliberal language stereotypes and marginalizes working class people and steers deep social problems into the woefully inadequate channels of individualism. Welfare Words provides a timely counter-voice to the neoliberal policies which have devastated our post-austerity world’.

Marnie Holborow, Dublin City University, Republic of Ireland

‘Paul Michael Garrett's new book provides valuable insights into the role of cultural and ideological forces in shaping a society's characterization of human needs and in developing policy responses to persistent social and economic issues. The book begins with an in-depth analysis of these forces and then applies its sophisticated conceptual framework to contemporary problems such as welfare dependency, social exclusion, and social care. In an era in which language, facts, and "truth" are increasingly distorted to rationalize regressive approaches to social welfare, the book provides readers with a clearer understanding of the origins and implications of anti-welfare perspectives and with an alternate lens to interpret contemporary social and political phenomena’

Michael Reisch, Daniel Thursz Distinguished Professor of Social Justice, University of Maryland, USA

‘This is an original and insightful book, which offers us a fresh perspective on some of the key themes and challenges in social work. It will prompt new thinking and provide practitioners with important critical tools to support their interventions’.

Roger S. Smith, University of Durham, England

‘Garrett’s book offers a comprehensive approach to the study of aocial policy in social work, encouraging readers to think critically about key words in their wider historical, political and cultural context. Drawing on an innovative conceptual lens in which to view social welfare, this is a key text for critical social work and social policy’.

Karen Roscoe, University of Wolverhampton, England

‘Garrett invites scholars, students and professionals to think about the role of language in welfare decisions [and] he provides valid instruments to cultivate a new way of thinking about welfare issues, new modes of resistance and political approaches “in and beyond social work and policy”’

Francesca Bragaglia, Urban Research & Practice, 2018

‘The premise of Paul Michael Garrett’s captivating new book, Welfare Words, is that we need to track back through the words we use to talk about welfare, to understand the ways that those words are deployed today, by whom, and to what effect…Underpinning Garrett’s book is an important theoretical discussion of hegemony, which as cultural studies scholars have argued is a process that works by neutralising competing perspectives and recruiting strategic consent and compliance. Indeed, the fruitful dialogue which has opened up between cultural studies and critical policy studies is showcased throughout this book. Garrett makes judicious use of these interdisciplinary debates to demonstrate how, and why, particular ideas seem to “stick” and “take hold” of our welfare imaginaries…This is a fascinating and rich book, which documents the central place of language in the (re)production of social order and the importance of welfare words in delineating the parameters of our collective imagination’.

Tracey Jensen, Critical Social Policy 2018

‘This is a significant new work. It highlights the crucial importance of the power of “welfare words”. It maps the development and use of these terms against a backdrop of welfare retrenchment, increasing inequality and austerity. It provides a clear insight into the way that a neoliberal vocabulary of welfare has played a powerful role in structuring debates in these fields. It is a well written and argued text, which is superbly researched. It is essential reading for all those interested in developing a critical social work mode of practice but also those with an interest in critical social policy. There is clearly scope for a second volume that examines a further series of keywords’.

Ian Cummins, The Sociological Review, January 2019

‘Garrett's book is intellectually compelling as well as inspiring in the way it systematically exposes the neoliberal myths in unequal societies. It will inspire the readership to work for social justice in social policy and society’.

Niels Rosendal Jensen, European Journal of Social Work, April 2019

‘Garrett’s book critically examines the language of welfare to enable consideration of the historical, political and cultural standpoints that underpin welfare discourses. Through employing the phrase “Welfare Words” he invites us to analytically examine (or re-examine) the power and motivations contained within welfare discourses. Garrett provides the reader with, an insightful consideration of the role of language in social welfare service provisions. The book succeeds in clearly demonstrating how neoliberal ideology oppresses and blames and, in doing so, it dispels neoliberal discourse –challenging the reader to reframe the language of oppressive practice norms’.

Kelly J. Smith, Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 2019

‘What I found most striking about this book was the way Garrett shows the changing meanings of keywords over time and in relation to wider social developments. Many terms now used to maintain a neoliberal agenda and societal status quo, often had more progressive and, often, revolutionary meaning behind them. Such an insight should alert us to the need not to take any term at face value but interrogate it in order to discover what it signifies at any historical juncture and particular social context. Garrett has provided us with a valuable analysis of the language of welfare and of the political uses and misuses of keywords that are ubiquitous within the field of social welfare, social policy, social work and the wider public. I highly recommend it for all levels of study within such disciplines as well as those of politics, sociology, media and cultural studies. It is also required reading for academics and politically engaged members of the public, indeed anyone with an interest in, understanding contemporary society’.

Kenneth McLaughlin, Journal of Political Power, 2019

‘Welfare Words is vital reading for all social workers, and indeed any helping professionals engaged in supporting people who are impoverished, excluded from the labour market and/or adversely impacted by burgeoning wealth inequality. Hence Welfare Words holds important implications for all fields of social work practice…The theoretical material that informs the book is brought to life with well-chosen examples of contemporary issues, debates and events in the UK, USA and European contexts primarily, as well as some examples from Australia and New Zealand. This diversity of contexts is a strength: the examples are engrossing and easily transferable across nations where neoliberalism prevails….The quality of the critical scholarship of Welfare Words is excellent. We thoroughly recommend this text to social work students, educators and practitioners alike for opening a door to critical reflection and problematisation of the words and concepts that drive social policy and social work practice’.

Christine Morley & Selma MacFarlane, Critical and Radical Social Work, 2019

‘Garrett offers a comprehensive approach to studying social policy in social work and encourages readers to think critically about keywords in their broader historical, political, and cultural context. His politically engaged linguistic interventions help us think about how to take steps towards less oppressive and more positive forms of service provision….[It] can be recommended to readers because it is an original book, which seeks to understand the ideology underlying welfare words, and by doing so, exposes the power and oppression operating through them. The book highlights the power of language when it comes to social welfare and it will prompt new thinking’.

Barbora Gřundělová, Czech and Slovak Social Work, 2019

‘The intended audiences for the book are both graduate-level and final year undergraduate students in social work and social policy, and perhaps also those in education, criminology, and health…Welfare Words is an ambitious work, one that can be read as a selective history of the recent past, as a demonstration of depth-style analysis, as the intellectual biography of a particular scholar, and as an invitation to dialog on shared matters of concern’.

Tina Wilson, Journal of Progressive Human Services, 2019

‘Although focused upon the UK as the site of analysis, this is a book that will be a really valuable resource for anyone teaching in schools, colleges and universities globally for the way it scrutinizes and problematizes a language of violence which has become normalized. It will particularly useful for those who teach young people without a memory of the struggles in defence of the welfare state as it once was, and who see the problems of the horribly unequal world we are living in but do not have the words and concepts to connect up the things happening around them’.

Stephen Cowden, Social Work Education, 2020

‘Paul Michael Garrett, an acclaimed author in the field, debates the impact of the neoliberal agenda on inequality and marginality…Garrett urges social workers to think critically about the contradictions that confront them in contemporary political and welfare systems and to hold to the profession’s principles of intervention within an increasingly divided society; and acknowledge how neoliberal practices demonise social problems and intensify vulnerability and marginality. Garrett’s book is an essential text for social workers seeking to understand the complexity of contemporary practice and the external forces that challenge its integrity. It is an essential addition to contemporary social work discourse’.

Rosemary Sheehan, Australian Social Work, 2021

‘Although focused upon the UK as the site of analysis, this is a book that will be a really valuable resource for anyone teaching in schools, colleges and universities globally for the way it scrutinizes and problematizes a language of violence which has become normalized. It will particularly useful for those who teach young people without a memory of the struggles in defence of the welfare state as it once was, and who see the problems of the horribly unequal world we are living in but do not have the words and concepts to connect up the things happening around them’.

Stephen Cowden, Social Work Education, 2020