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The essay draws on the shifting methodology in an ongoing multi-sited digital ethnography research project about vaccination-related social media forums. The research, which focuses on vaccine caution and vaccine confidence, was initially directed by ‘following the conflict,’ one of the strategies of following thatGeorge Marcus discusses in his methodology for multi-sited ethnography. However, over the course of time, and after improvisations related to access, positionality, the changing nature of digital content and context of interactions, the initial focus on ‘the war on vaccines’ shifted into a challenging ofoversimplified ideas of oppositional stances, division, and ‘conflict’. What I refer to as ‘following agreements within the conflict’ helps to highlight how the forum members, regardless of their stance, can challenge debate divisions − such as scientific–unscientific, medical–anti-medical, research evidence–anecdotal evidence, and individual–public − while still adhering to medico-scientific discourses as zones of agreements. This enables a modest effort to put both vaccine caution and vaccine confidence on the map of improvisations of health activism and the social movements more generally. Inaddition, it highlights the limits to liminality. In an adult-centric debate that silences young people’s views on (child) vaccinations, I propose the strategy of ‘following silences’ as an additional form of agreement. Finally, I argue that afocus on agreements and silences in conflicts is in alignment with anthropological and post-structural research which commonly focuses onliminal zones and continuities and sheds light on complexities in a nuanced and ‘thick’ manner.

George Marcus’s methodology for multi-sited ethnography is widely discussed and applied in anthropology and the strategy of ‘following the conflict’ has been a fruitful approach to studying controversies and conflicts. Drawing on my shifting methodology in the initial stages of a digital ethnography project on vaccination-related online community forums, I explore ‘the war’ on vaccines using a broadened strategy that includes following agreements and silences within the controversy. By examining the debate in conjunction with medical anthropology research, I discuss how both vaccine-cautious and vaccine-confident forum members challenge conventional debate divisions, such as scientific–unscientific, evidential–anecdotal and genetic–environmental, while still adhering to medico-scientific discourses as zones of agreement. Whereas an agreement-oriented methodology contributes to research on liminal zones and reconfigured forms of bio-citizenship and literacy, the strategy of ‘following silences’ highlights the limits to liminality in a debate underpinned by adultism that silences the views of young people.

Transnational and global actors and debates largely influence social and development work in the international arena. An example of this is out-of-home childcare, where current trends show support for both deinstitutionalised options and institutionalised residential childcare, such as orphanages. Higher education international exchange programs, which may involve Social Work field placements, are, however, relatively invisible as actors supporting or opposing deinstitutionalisation and institutionalisation of Social Work. This is important to highlight considering that in the Global South, institutionalisation may be sustained by actors from the Global North, despite the fact that deinstitutionalisation is generally advocated in the Global North. Furthermore, given the rise of “voluntourism”, which has transformed formerly non-profit humanitarianism into for-profit tourism, it is crucial to investigate these collaborations and ask critical questions about the kind of Social Work that is supported. Voluntourism makes less demands on previous experience, language proficiency, duration of stay and offers tailored “internship packages”, which makes it particularly appealing to students who are looking for internships in the Global South. In addition to earlier problematisations of international exchanges between the Global North and Global South as new forms of colonialism and professional imperialism, Social Work field placements carry particular concerns. The work may in the worst case be considered to rest on the exploitation of the already vulnerable, often in the so called child orphanage industry, irregular and short-term work and a lack of solidarity and reciprocity with the local community.

Drawing on the case of an Indonesian-Swedish partnership involving the higher education and NGOs, this paper discusses how international partnerships related to Social Work can challenge unequal relations of power, changing the meaning of Social Work in the process. In particular, initiatives involving digital Social Work and follow-up work will be discussed as sustainable alternatives in a world shaped by power dynamics between the Global North and the Global South.

Recent political changes in Sweden are undermining social work as a human rights profession by accentuating it once again as nationalised and citizenship oriented. This commentary addresses the Tidö Agreement that immerses social work into a politics of surveillance of undocumented migrants. Writing from the perspective of a lecturer who works for internationalisation in a university setting, I provide critical reflections on what internationalisation of social work might mean in the contemporary context and outline some strategies as ways forward.

Knowledge and theory are developed by adults, for adults, and often about adults. This includes mainstream research about children and youth, which is frequently criticised for being adultcentric. Similar critique is also applicable to feminist theory, feminist philosophy, and other critical studies that focuses largely on adults. With these insights, it is necessary to consider whether and how the feminist philosopher Miranda Fricker's concept of epistemic justice might be useful in attempting to address social justice issues in childhoods and youth.

The concept of epistemic injustice, as discussed by Fricker, has helped to highlight racist and sexist discriminatory practices. Such injustices are claimed to be founded on prejudices and unjustified treatment. However, it could be challenging to conceptualise epistemic wrongdoings in these ways when it comes to how people and groups, such as children and minors, who are often regarded as irrational or cognitively and morally immature, are treated. Children and adolescents are generally regarded to have lower epistemic capacities than adults since they are not fully developed. In developmental psychology, for example, these developmentalist representations are considered as facts and findings, rather than prejudiced. Additionally, the traditional conception of knowledgeable and morally capable subjects may include moral and ethical obligations. Children may not end up in prisons after committing crime in those environments where it is believed that they lack the capacity to discern right from wrong. And yet, the same conception of children also denies them the right to vote in “democratic” societies and be taken seriously as knowledgeable and moral service users, patients or pupils.

In this essay, I make an attempt to elaborate on epistemic justice through the lenses of critical childhood studies, postcolonial feminist theory and intersectionality. Drawing on my doctoral dissertation on intersecting injustices in child welfare social work in Sweden, I describe instances in which children are subject to epistemic injustices. I argue that the psychobiological objectification of children, the exclusion of children's narratives as accounts of evidence and (in)justice but also distinctive modes of moral differentiation and othering of some children's childhoods, are all examples of epistemic injustices in childhoods. Finally, I turn to research on child and youth activism to highlight some important considerations that a recognition of children and young people as epistemic and moral subjects brings to the debate about epistemic justice issues as well as in imagining less adultist and more child-friendly societies and worldviews.

Apart from global inequalities and structural obstacles at the university level, there are additional discipline-specific challenges concerning internationalisation work in higher education. This paper will discuss these issues in relation to social work as an academic discipline and profession and from the perspective of my work as an international coordinator and assistant professor in a social work education programme in a Swedish context. First, I introduce social work as an ambiguous discipline and profession concerning its nationalised-international nexus. By drawing attention to a concrete current political development, I discuss the paradoxical relationship between, on the one hand, the global definition of social work and, on the other hand, criticism of nationalised social work and its Eurocentrism and professional imperialism. Addressing decolonial critical pedagogy and the notions of epistemic disobedience, unlearning, and pluriversity, I discuss how to work for change within the mentioned constraints.