Presentation Information U.S. Systemic Violence amidst the COVID-19 Disaster: A Critical Disaster Framework for Social Workers Juliana Svistova, Ph.D., MSW, Associate Professor, Department of Social Work, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania Using a lens of critical disaster scholarship and practice, we theorize the COVID-19 pandemic as a community and global health disaster marked not only by illness, death, and trauma, but by historically structured economic, social, and cultural causes, conditions, and consequences. In other words, COVID-19, like other disasters, reveals, perpetuates, and produces structural violence. To inform social work knowledge and action, we draw parallels between previous disasters and that of COVID-19 and offer a critical framework depicting the historic and systemic progression of risk and vulnerability in the U.S. context. We conclude our paper with a reflection on the notion of “normal” arguing that pre-COVID existence was, in fact, abnormal and deadly. We call on social workers to a radical re-imagination of the future in solidarity with social movements and transformation efforts taking root turning this disaster into an opportunity to build a safer, healthier, and more equitable world. Juliana Svistova, Ph.D., MSW, Associate Professor, Department of Social Work, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania Dr. Svistova earned her Ph.D. in Social Work and M.S.W from the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Her scholarship is concerned with community development and participatory approaches to social change in local and transnational contexts. She also studies organizational dimensions of policy implementation in practice. Dr. Svistova has a focused interest in disasters, interpretation of natural disasters, and resultant policy, practice, and grassroots responses to these events. She is a community-engaged, interdisciplinary scholar in the fields of social work, policy, public health and education. Co-Author of Production of Disaster and Recovery in Post-Earthquake Haiti: Disaster Industrial Complex
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzcxOTE=