Producing spaces of care in public urban places: Discovering relations between social workers’ work knowledge and social spaces

Abstract Social work studies have been attentive to the significance of space and place, but few have explored the relationship between space and social workers’ ‘work knowledge’. The literature on professional discretion has focused on ways in which bureaucratization, rules, and procedures structure and limit the ability to engage meaningfully with clients in social work practices. This study builds on findings from observations of and interviews with social workers employed in NGO-based services doing outreach work in public urban places. These social workers have ample room to make autonomous judgements in their everyday work. While communication is fundamental in deciding how to engage with recipients of care, this article explores how space is significant for care practices. The study examines relations between ‘work knowledge’ and space by drawing on theoretical perspectives from institutional ethnography and Lefebvre’s spatial analysis. This conceptual approach assists in making visible central processes, skills, and knowledge involved in social work practices easily ignored when observing institutional aspects that organize social work practices. The study finds that social workers’ negotiation of how to best provide care is constituted by spatial aspects, as well as how social workers simultaneously engage in transforming space through their practices.