Social work is often presented as a benevolent and politically neutral profession, avoiding discussion about its sometimes troubling political histories. This book rethinks social work's legacy and history of both political resistance and complicity with oppressive and punitive practices. Using a comparative approach with international case studies, the book uncovers the role of social workers in politically tense episodes of recent history including the anti-racist struggle in the US and the impact of colonialism in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. As the de-colonisation of curricula and Black Lives Matter movement gain momentum, the fascinating book skilfully navigates social work's collective political past while considering its future.

Social work is often presented as a benevolent and politically neutral profession, avoiding discussion about its sometimes troubling political histories. This book rethinks social work’s legacy and history of both political resistance and complicity with oppressive and punitive practices. Using a comparative approach with international case studies, the book uncovers the role of social workers in politically tense episodes of recent history, including the anti-racist struggle in the US and the impact of colonialism in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. As the de-colonisation of curricula and the Black Lives Matter movement gain momentum, this fascinating book skilfully navigates social work’s collective political past while considering its future.

Illegal migrants who evade detection, creators of value in insecure and precarious working conditions and those who refuse the constraints of sexual and biomedical classifications: these are the people who manage to subvert power and to craft unexpected sociabilities and experiences. Escape Routes shows how people can escape control and create social change by becoming imperceptible to the political system of Global North Atlantic societies.

"A profound and brilliant examination of the power of exodus to create radical interventions in perhaps the three most important and contested fields of society today: life, migration and precarious labour. It is in these fields that the present and future of multitude is at stake. "Escape Routes" is a toolbox in the hands of multitude."
---Antonio Negri, author of "Insurgencies" and co-author of "Empire and Multitude"

"Another world is here So announce the authors in their preface to a stirring and intellectually inspiring book about the possibility, the necessity and the potency of escape. Rather than seeing social transformation in terms of revolt, event and abrupt shifts, the authors trace escape routes through the ordinary and through everyday practices. "Escape Routes" is required reading for anyone who believes in the alternative worlds produced alongside neoliberal capitalism."
---Judith Halberstam, University of Southern California, author of "In a Queer Time and Place"

"A rich variety of work starts with some version of the autonomous thesis, that the everyday actions or resistances of people precede power; they are in fact what constitute and drive power forward. "Escape Routes" is one of the most original and interesting efforts to build a fuller understanding of the contemporary world, by focussing on processes and mapping out some of the history of modern power and resistance."
---Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of "Caught in the Crossfire: Kids, Politics, and America's Future"

"This is one of the most original treatments of some of the big questions we confront today. Even familiar subjects gain a new kind of traction as they are repositioned in the authors' sharply defined lens of control and subversion. This is conceptualisation at its best - "Escape Routes" allows us to see what might otherwise be illegible and it continuously executes reversals of standard interpretations of the present."
---Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, author of "Territory, Authority, Rights"

Dimitris Papadopoulos teaches social theory at Cardiff University, UK. He is co-editor of the journal "Subjectivity" and his work has appeared in various journals including "Boundary 2"; "Culture, Theory & Critique"; "Darkmatter"; and "Ephemera."

Niamh Stephenson teaches social science at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Her most recent book, "Analysing Everyday Experience: Social Research and Political Change" (2006), was co-authored with Dimitris Papadopoulos.

Vassilis Tsianos teaches sociology at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He is co-editor of "Empire and the Biopolitical Turn" (2007) and "Turbulent Margins: New Perspectives of Migration in Europe" (2007).

Illegal migrants who evade detection, creators of value in insecure and precarious working conditions and those who refuse the constraints of sexual and biomedical classifications: these are the people who manage to subvert power and to craft unexpected sociabilities and experiences. Escape Routes shows how people can escape control and create social change by becoming imperceptible to the political system of Global North Atlantic societies.

"A profound and brilliant examination of the power of exodus to create radical interventions in perhaps the three most important and contested fields of society today: life, migration and precarious labour. It is in these fields that the present and future of multitude is at stake. "Escape Routes" is a toolbox in the hands of multitude."
---Antonio Negri, author of "Insurgencies" and co-author of "Empire and Multitude"

"Another world is here So announce the authors in their preface to a stirring and intellectually inspiring book about the possibility, the necessity and the potency of escape. Rather than seeing social transformation in terms of revolt, event and abrupt shifts, the authors trace escape routes through the ordinary and through everyday practices. "Escape Routes" is required reading for anyone who believes in the alternative worlds produced alongside neoliberal capitalism."
---Judith Halberstam, University of Southern California, author of "In a Queer Time and Place"

"A rich variety of work starts with some version of the autonomous thesis, that the everyday actions or resistances of people precede power; they are in fact what constitute and drive power forward. "Escape Routes" is one of the most original and interesting efforts to build a fuller understanding of the contemporary world, by focussing on processes and mapping out some of the history of modern power and resistance."
---Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of "Caught in the Crossfire: Kids, Politics, and America's Future"

"This is one of the most original treatments of some of the big questions we confront today. Even familiar subjects gain a new kind of traction as they are repositioned in the authors' sharply defined lens of control and subversion. This is conceptualisation at its best - "Escape Routes" allows us to see what might otherwise be illegible and it continuously executes reversals of standard interpretations of the present."
---Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, author of "Territory, Authority, Rights"

Dimitris Papadopoulos teaches social theory at Cardiff University, UK. He is co-editor of the journal "Subjectivity" and his work has appeared in various journals including "Boundary 2"; "Culture, Theory & Critique"; "Darkmatter"; and "Ephemera."

Niamh Stephenson teaches social science at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Her most recent book, "Analysing Everyday Experience: Social Research and Political Change" (2006), was co-authored with Dimitris Papadopoulos.

Vassilis Tsianos teaches sociology at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He is co-editor of "Empire and the Biopolitical Turn" (2007) and "Turbulent Margins: New Perspectives of Migration in Europe" (2007).

Im Anschluss an Michel Foucault formierte sich eine Debatte um den Begriff der Biopolitik, die diesen als Einsatz einer kritischen "Analytik der Gegenwart" konzipiert, um Spiele der Macht zu untersuchen. Der vorliegende Band bietet das keineswegs homogene Bild der gegenwartigen Diskussion, die sich mit Foucault und uber diesen hinausweisend einer produktiv gewendete Biopolitik von unten" verpflichtet sieht. Biopolitische Produktion bezeichnet vor diesem Hintergrund das Terrain der Kampfe um Subjektivitat, um die Arten und Weisen der Verbindung zwischen Lebensfuhrung, Konsum, Sexualitat, politischer Reprasentation und Produktionsweise. Diese Forschungsprogrammatik zielt darauf, das Produktive, Mobile und Uberschussige im Herzen der Biopolitik und im Vakuum von Kontrolle, Regulierung und (Selbst-)Regierung auszuloten."

Since 2010 we have witnessed new ways of assembling, which have made the word "democracy" sound important again. These practices may not have led to the political changes we had hoped for. Nevertheless, we are convinced of their importance. This book wants to acknowledge them as a starting point for a new art of being many: The "many" invoke new concepts of collectivity by renegotiating their modes of participation and (self-)presentation and by rewriting rhetorical, choreographical, and material scripts of assembling. This volume is inspired and informed by the square-occupations and neighborhood assemblies of the "real democracy" movements as well as by recent explorations of the assembly form in performance art and participatory theatre.