The Biopolitics of Community: An analysis of the recovery processes and school social work practices in the wake of the 2010 and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes

This PhD study seeks to understand the ‘self-evidence’ of community as a recovery response and its implications for school social workers who were involved in supporting children and parents in the aftermath of the 2010 and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. The implications of the community discourse within securitising mechanisms are examined for the ways school social workers were positioned as the ‘significant other’ in schools and their preferences for individualised, therapeutic interventions. I outline some ‘unexpected’ social work practices and present them as potential, alternative community spaces in schools centred on the notions of difference and communal relations.