Neoliberal talk: The routinized structures of document–focused social worker–client discourse

Routinization has increasingly become a way for front-line practitioners to make unwieldy caseloads manageable (Lipsky 2010 [1980]). A common tension in modern day social work, the tension between responsiveness and standardization (Hjörne, Juhila, and van Nijnatten 2010), in part surfaces through the use of routines that standardize practice, some argue, at the expense of more personal, individualized service (Abramovitz and Zelnick 2015). While routines are an enduring part of bureaucratic practice in general (Lipsky 2010 [1980]), the advent of neoliberal ideology and its attendant institutional manifestations (New Public Management and New Managerialism) has forced routines to do double duty (White, Hall, and Peckover 2008). Thus, they persist in helping practitioners manage heavy caseloads, while also integrating a business purpose to routine work. Routine documents still record client information but also serve to measure performance and ensure accountability. Book contributor Jamie Peck (2010) has suggested that “the ontology of neoliberalism” involves “an evolving web of relays, routines, and relations” (p. 34).